Cel service woes have City officials seeking solutions

Some problems with cel service reception in the city have reached the offices of the Mayor and City Council, with the topic introduced for discussion at Monday's City Council session.

During the course of the Monday session, Councillor Gurvinder Randhawa and Mayor Brain traded stories of unhappy residents reaching out to the City, expressing their frustrations and seeking a solution to an ongoing issue related to Telus cellular phone service to some areas of the city.

Councillor Randhawa started the discussion off by noting that he had been contacted by residents around the city who have no signal available. With the city councillor inquiring as to what kind of arrangement that CityWest might have negotiated when it transitioned out of the cel service business and directed customers to Telus back in the winter of 2013.

And while Randhawa didn't gain an answer as to whether CityWest had negotiated any form of service arrangement as part of the transition to the national cellular provider, he did learn that the Mayor had been made aware of the issues as well and that a letter had been forwarded to Telus officials to seek some form of solution to the situation.

Mayor Brain outlined for Council how he and staff had been working on the issue over the last week, that after he too had received feedback from the public when it comes to complaints related to the Telus service.

During the course of his notes for Council the Mayor observed that one person who had reached out to him was an emergency responder in the community who has no signal at her home, an issue that the Mr. Brain believes is a safety concern.

He did not indicate what reply the City had received from Telus to this point, but did note that one option that the City is considering is to instal signal boosters on telephone poles across the affected area, which may make for a solution to the situation.

You can review the discussion from the City's You Tube Video Archive starting at the one hour twelve minute point.



More items related to Monday's Council session can be reviewed on our Council Timeline feature.

Further background on topics for discussion at City Council can be examined on our City Council Discussion page.

Issues related to communication services in the community can be found on our archive page here.