SaskTel president Ron Styles finally got back to me today and claimed that he was also writing on behalf of Minster Jim Reiter, responsible for overseeing SaskTel. With men like them at the helm of this telecom company, it’s no wonder money is being wasted.
Mr. Styles addressed a number of my claims in his letter, which I am reproducing in full here in italics, with my thoughts interspersed throughout:
Thank you for writing to discuss your concerns regarding wireless coverage for St. Victor. I understand that you also contacted The Honourable Jim Reiter, Minister Responsible for SaskTel. The Minister has asked that I respond on his behalf.
We understand the importance of providing communications services in rural areas. SaskTel faces a unique challenge as Saskatchewan has the fewest customers per square kilometre of any province and therefore SaskTel incurs significant costs to deliver service to rural locations.
Notice here that he said provinces. What about the three territories?
My response to this:
I have a friend who lives deep in the Yukon bush south of Dawson City. She has full LTE service at her cabin after asking Bell Mobility if there were any plans to increase the gain on an antenna built fairly close to her (10-20KM away), but which she couldn’t connect to because of terrain. I don’t know what they did, but it only took a few weeks for her to go from half a bar of service on the top floor of her house to full service all over her property! So I don’t buy your arguments that we’re too remote or too small a population to give service to because I know communities that are much more remote than us that have good service. I lived in Yukon for two years and traveled through the Territories. Any community St. Victor’s size with road access was online with DSL and often cellular, too.
While SaskTel’s wireless network does extend to 98 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population, there are locations where coverage is either poor or not available.
SaskTel does provide high speed Internet to 100 per cent of Saskatchewan’s population through different technologies. SaskTel Satellite Internet powered by Xplornet may be a solution for customers, such as yourself, where Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service is not an effective option. SaskTel High Throughput Satellite (HTS) Internet Service powered by Xplornet, which offers faster download speeds, will be available in the St. Victor area by the end of 2015. We would be pleased to discuss this option with you further to help address your needs for High Speed service.
This is proof that he is the wrong man for the job. My response:
The fact that you think that satellite internet is a reasonable alternative to cellular broadband for anyone in southern Canada shows that you have never used it and have no understanding of the internet needs of the average 21st century user, much less a business owner. Satellite has huge latency issues, which make VOIP services, like Skype, unusable and streaming difficult. It is disturbing that SaskTel is expanding that inferior service to rural areas and passing it off as being something we should be excited about instead of adding repeaters to extend tower ranges, or even extending DSL lines. Has SaskTel even considered giving us DSL service instead? We’re less than 18KM from the nearest house that has DSL.
You mention that SaskTel operates as a monopoly; however, I can assure you that SaskTel operates in the most competitive telecommunications market in Canada. The decision of any company to enter, or to not enter, the Saskatchewan market is not something that SaskTel or the Government of Saskatchewan controls.
I am waiting on Rogers before replying to this claim. Rogers is the only other telecom in the country to have towers in Saskatchewan.
We appreciate your suggestion to adjust the angle of the equipment on the tower. However, after analysis of the St. Victor area, our computer projections indicate that if we pointed the nearest antenna directly at St. Victor, there may be marginal improvement in coverage in the community at best, while compromising service to surrounding areas.
Other areas that are served by the Rockglen and Assiniboia towers. I doubt that any analysis was actually done because I have my own data from an expert in this field that confirms anecdotal reports that the Scout Lake tower is actually servicing no one that isn’t already serviced by the Rockglen and Assiniboia towers.
SaskTel is very thorough and deliberate while selecting wireless sites, and decisions are made based on several factors, including: the local geography (including hills, trees and manmade structures), the number of permanent residents covered by the site, in-season population growth and tourism at resort communities, distance from major highways and the opportunity for
revenue and cost recovery.
Another line of bullshit. I’m calling it what it is. St. Victor gets a lot of traffic daily from visitors traveling between Assiniboia and St. Victor. We are a tourist destination because of our petroglyphs and get visitors from all over the world. We host a huge biker rally every year. We even have two museums right here in the hamlet! Everyone in the area is just waiting for the day that a big emergency breaks out at the St. Victor Boogie with lives lost because of the inability to call out since we know that’s what it’s going to take to get service here.
I have no proof of this, but SaskTel selected the location of the Scout Lake tower because they got a better lease rate than they would have from someone down here in the valley. I have not brought this up with anyone, including the CBC, because it is conjecture, but at this point, it is the only conclusion left and a very likely one at that.
I empathize with your desire for improved wireless coverage, and I can state that SaskTel is always reviewing our network and coverage to ensure that we provide all residents of Saskatchewan with access to the most expansive mobile service network in the province.
Don’t patronize me, Mr. Styles. You’re dealing with someone who has an unusual amount of knowledge about telecom coverage in this country and what it actually means to be a remote community.
As previously indicated, there is not a good business case for SaskTel to expand wireless service in the St. Victor area.
And there was to Scout Lake???!!! I want a rational line by line financial report of your justification.
However, we would like to discuss possible participation in the Shared Model Program if your community is interested in this option. Bill Beckman, Director of Strategic Business Development, would be pleased to discuss this with you or other residents, if you so desire. Bill can be reached at 306-777-4208.
Bill is going to do like that private company in Calgary and quote my municipality an amount that it can’t and shouldn’t have to pay for a service that you should be providing to us.
Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns.
There he is patronizing me again.
Sincerely,
Ron Styles
President and CEO
In the end it is all about the money and that is all that matters to people like Mr. Styles. Every penny he can hang onto for the company make his annual bonus bigger.
Linda, I’m starting to think there is something even more nefarious going on here, like a kickback scheme…
I thought it rather remarkable that a Government Minister would ask the President of a corporation to “respond on his behalf” Good God, where is the oversight? Is SaskTel and the Government one and the same?
Croft, I had the same thought. I forwarded the email with my thoughts to the NDP critic for SaskTel.
Better watch your back, Rae. Looks like you are making enemies in high places, even if you are right. But it is about the almighty dollar to them because they never have to do without the services you do without.
Thanks, Mom. It’s really obvious that they have no concept of what the 21st century internet user needs or what it means to actually be in a remote location. They’re trying to brush off the wrong gal!
Remember what I said about those black helicopters circling overhead.
None yet. 😀
You give Mr Ron Styles far too much credit when you say ” It’s really obvious that they have no concept of what the 21st century internet user needs or what it means to actually be in a remote location.” He knows what you need but does not want to spend the money to pay for it. Linda in NE is correct “it is all about the money”.
If he made a mistake in the past that is money that has been spent. He is not going to admit that he made the mistake and spend more money to correct it.
You Mom is right – watch your back. You may win but it is going to cost you by the time you do. You need to elicit the help of a Sancho Panza!
I have one politician on my side on this issue. I sent him this information and my suspicions that there is something going on that isn’t on the level, maybe even a kickback scheme. We’ll see if I can push for a proper investigation to be made…
The fact that they are spending money on satellite for my area is damning. There is money to spend here, just not where it needs to be spent. He made a huge mistake by telling me this, I think, because it just gives me more ammunition for my belief that there is something crooked going on. They are not making decisions rationally.
It would be nice to have someone watching my back, but I’m firmly on my own here. Going public with everything is the only way I can think of at this point to protect myself.
Hi, We have the same issue here. I live half hour north of North Battleford and there is very poor service here. When I got my phone they insisted my area had great coverage and would not have a problem. I was hoping to get rid of my home phone and go with just the cell phone but have found out unless I go with a company like Xplornet that will not happen. I refuse to pay another bill when SaskTel promised great coverage. So now instead of paying $80 for home phone I now pay that $80 home phone $80 cell phone . They increased their profit by $960 per year for a two year contract on one person out of how many of us in the province with poor service? So once I am done with my contact I am dropping the cell phone which sucks because I’m on the highway on my own going two hours to see my kids in the middle of winter, reason I got the phone in the first place. Highway 4 has a lot of dead areas and highway 3 also has a lot of dead area between Glaslyn and Turtleford. I have been fighting with SaskTel since day one. SaskTel is owned by our government. It’s all about the money and not the customer – it’s just like SGI and me with an older vehicle paying the same rate as a new vehicle. They are all in bed with each other and yes I believe there are kick backs going on when you have companies coming in and doing the work that we are paying SaskTel to do. If we privatized all of these government corporations we might be better off. Then you would have companies fighting for our business instead of us having one….. maybe two options if we are lucky. Need a provincial petition.
Hi Rhonda,
Thank you so very much for your comment! I feel your pain! 🙁
I took my internet issues as far as retaining a lawyer and testifying at government hearings. The fact is that the only way anything will change is through legislation. Unfortunately, based on my interactions with my community, support for such a thing would be rare in a country where nothing ever changes and we just keep electing the same ineffective idiots over and over again.
That infuriates me is that small ISPs out of Ontario are super eager to get in and fill the gaps, but SaskTel won’t let them use their networks. The lawyer I spoke with said that Canada is the only country in the developed world where we can’t sue the hell out of our ISP and force them to comply with the ISP that would give us service. I went through this in Quebec 20 years ago — Bell Mobility wouldn’t give my community service and they shut down a tiny ISP that did. The situation is still exactly the same. Hence why I gave up in SK after SaskTel started to really make threats. So now, I live in Mexico and enjoy excellent cell and landline service in a country that understands the importance of being online. I’m so sorry you’re stuck in your current situation. 🙁
Looking forward to hearing what Rogers says.
Rae, don’t be too hard on your neighbors and fellow townspeople. After reading your response to this guys letter I would bet that there was no one else who was up to the task of responding in such a knowledgeable way. In fact I would say that most of this stuff is way over your towns head. They would have gotten as far as sending a letter and then agreeing that they were wrong to ask for any help from Mr. Styles as Mr. Styles probably hoped you would do. From what I see there is only one person qualified to do this job and you are it baby 🙂 Several years ago I was put into a position to take charge of a problem that seemed like no one else wanted to tackle. I was angry but I did it and found out in the process that for years other parents had failed at this task where I succeeded (it involved a problem teacher). So I feel like I can understand your frustration. It’s called the reluctant hero or heroine and I admire your courage and achievements and throughly agree with others to watch your back!