ELORA – Belwood may be getting fibre internet.
At the Sept. 23 committee of the whole meeting Centre Wellington heard a presentation from Andrew Tadros, owner of Netflash Internet Solutions.
“We are bringing something really exciting to the community,” Tadros said. “We’re building a fibre-to-the-home project.”
The company already offers internet connection at Pine Meadows, between Belwood and Fergus.
“We want to upgrade the community as a whole so we’re bringing a fibre … trunk line to the centre of Belwood and then branching out from there,” he explained.
“So some of the services that we’re going to bring to the area is speeds of internet to each household up to one gigabyte and it is fibre services right from our operation right directly to the person’s home.
“So there’s nothing intermediary from there.”
The trunk line will be located at Simpson’s Corners (Wellington Road 26 and 18) and a three-kilometre line will run through the centre of Belwood and offer services to about 500 properties.
The internet service will be $70/month with speeds up to 1 gigabyte per second. Each house will have a data centre.
Councillor Ian MacRae asked whether there were any cheaper options.
“That seems pretty steep for a lot of people,” he said.
Tadros said the $70/month option is the entry price with maximum speeds of 30 megabytes for fixed wireless at home.
“Internet communications is changing,” he said. “People are using the internet in a lot of different ways so speed and how they’re using the services … are changing the costs in behind the scenes.”
He also added that it costs between $3,000 and $4,000 per home to bring fibre internet to the community.
MacRae asked whether it was possible to sign up with another carrier and use the Netflash infrastructure once it’s in place.
Tadros said that because he’s an independent company his infrastructure is a separate network.
“There’s nothing stopping them from going to something else, if someone else wants to build in that area as well,” he said.
Councillor Steven VanLeeuwen, who was acting as meeting chair while Mayor Kelly Linton was absent, asked how Netflash planned to advertise its services to the community.
Tadros explained they would use a construction-style sign, social media, direct marketing to houses and talking to people.
“A lot of times what we find is once our contractors are onsite they get sort of asked a lot of questions,” he said.
However, the company’s focus is premarketing and people registering their home to get services. That way Netflash can do a home visit and see what is needed in that specific house.
“Based on people going to our website and registering their homes for the services we then work a construction schedule around that,” Tadros explained.
Netflash will also offer television and telephone services in Belwood.
The company has been in business over 23 years and covers 9,000 square kilometres in southwestern Ontario with about 140 towers.
“What we did was something different than a lot of fixed wireless companies and we’re able to bring reliability to a very difficult market,” he said. “The reliability and self-healing of our network is what allowed us to be very successful in this marketplace.”
The areas in close proximity to Belwood where Netflash currently offers services include: Maryhill, Roseville, West Montrose and Pine Meadows.
There was no timeline identified or resolutions passed at the committee of the whole meeting. The report was strictly for information.
“We’re excited about [Belwood] because the area has been under-serviced for many years and we’re putting some capital towards the community to build this out,” Tadros said.
