Bell Aliant coming good for high-speed trouble spots

SUMMERSIDE - Bell Aliant is promising Islanders using a wireless connection to get high-speed in their homes that they won't have to pay more than their neigbours.
Arlington Road resident St. Clair MacAulay is one of about 200 Islanders who has no option, other than to use a turbo stick to get high-speed Internet.
Since he's outside the wire-line's reach he was told last week he'd have to pay extra to get high-speed Internet.
"You're paying out the nose. Everyone had the impression it was going to be a landline to the house," said MacAulay. "I was just fuming."
MacAulay currently has dial-up Internet connection. Downloading a 600-megabyte program takes days.
"When you search, it's so slow. YouTube, you can forget using that."
His family's excitment over getting high-speed turned to disappointment when they were told they'd have to pay a monthly fee and $90 for a 500-megabyte turbo stick.
"I'm paying for someone's high-speed down the road and I'm told here's a turbo stick and that I won't get it for the same price."
Bruce Howatt, P.E.I. vice-president with Bell Aliant, said there are about 200 Island homes are in these so-called pocket areas.
"We've gone as far as we can with the wire-line service. Certain areas are beyond our access," he explained. "Rather than saying we're not going to provide high-speed to these customers, we're using the wireless solution to do that."
Initially, Islanders using a wireless connection were to be charged an additional equipment fee, a decision that changed earlier this week.
"A lot of customers were concerned if they used a lot of the service they would have to pay 'a lot more than my wire-line counterpart'," said Howatt. "We instituted a maximum, or a cap rate, on our wireless service up to our standard high-speed rate of $49.95."
He added no residential high-speed customer would pay more than that fee. He assured the residential wireless customers scattered across P.E.I. and those with a wire-line connection, they would receive the same service.
"The wireless technology that we're offering is not a second-class service. It is based upon the new 3G network that we've just turned up in November."
Customers in pocket areas won't have to wait longer to get connected, he added.
"We're just finalizing the processes for deployment of that service. We'll be contacting these customers by late next week as to when we will be able to hook them up."
As for MacAulay, he received his turbo stick on Wednesday and he's now high-speed ready.