Service levels 'appalling': East Gwillimbury council rules 96-foot tower can stay up

East Gwillimbury resident Brian Smith can keep his tower up for 30 months until better internet options are available according to council's decision.

Yorkregion.com
March 19, 2020
Simon Martin

When East Gwillimbury council first heard about a 96-foot tower erected on Fairbairn Gate in December it sounded like they wanted to take it down.

But three months later after a number of public meetings, council ruled that resident Brian Smith can keep his tower up for 30 months until better internet is available to the community.

“This is probably one of the most difficult decisions we have made,” Hackson said. “This seems to be the best scenario that we have in front of us here.”

The move was a nod to the difficulties rural residents in East Gwillimbury have getting adequate internet.

“I think it is backwards that service levels are so appalling that residents have to take matters in their own hands,” Ward 2 Coun. Tara Roy-DiClemente said.

According to town staff YorkNet is currently laying fibre on Woodbine Avenue and the neighbourhood could attach to it within a year or a year and a half.

When Smith moved to Fairbairn Gate in East Gwillimbury last year one thing became abundantly clear: the internet options were non-existent. Many locals were using Xplornet but they weren’t taking any new customers. “I can’t not have internet,” Smith said. He needed it for both his and his wife’s job. Smith was aiming to get 50 mb/s download speed. He learned the only way to do that was to build a tower. When Smith canvassed the neighbourhood if anyone was interested there were crickets. So he got a company to build a 96-foot tower at the side of his house.

“I made no bones about this. I did not do this for the betterment of the community,” he said. “I was going to solve my internet issues.”

A few months later FiberSpeed offered to provide service to the neighbourhood through his tower.

While the tower fixed Smith’s internet problem, not everyone in the community was elated with the addition. Neighbours like Ed Starr and Andre Paquette were left stunned by their new neighbour’s actions. “He skipped all these procedures and basically put it up,” Paquette said. “It’s terribly ugly.”

Starr, who happens to be a professional planner, said the tower is not compatible with the area and the number of homes in the immediate vicinity. He also said it is not a CSA-approved structure and there has been no engineering report done or soils test completed.

Smith said that 22 of the 30 residents that can use the tower are using the tower. He called the tower rural living, pointing out neighbours had a communications towers only some 30 feet shorter than his.

“This tower has been life-changing for many families in the area,” Smith said. “I have gotten a few thank-you cards from children in my neighbourhood.”

Katherine Sprigg said she frequently drives her kids to areas with public Wi-Fi so they can do homework. The speed of the internet at their house just doesn’t cut it. “We can’t even pull up Google Drive,” she said. “This is (a) far cry from a level playing field.”

FiberSpeed is offering unlimited data plans with speeds at 50 Mbps for $150 a month from Smith’s tower. Area resident Jamie Morphy has been desperate for better internet service for several years. When FiberSpeed starting offering service using Smith's tower, Morphy said things finally changed. "It's been a godsend," he said.

Starr had voiced his concern that a decision in favour of the tower would set a precedent for other similar towers to go up.

A decision in favour of the tower would set precedent for other similar towers to go up.

“We still have our protocol for erecting towers,” Ward 3 Coun. Scott Crone said.

The challenge from a decision-making perspective for Crone was that Smith didn’t receive the proper information from the town when he asked about building a tower.

“Internet is no different than electricity and clean water. It is so essential to our way of life now,” he said.

It was much the same story from Ward 1 Coun. Loralea Carruthers.

“There is a lot of people on the same street that have very tall towers,” she said. “The bigger issue is that people need internet. It’s becoming an essential service.”    

Smith has been overwhelmed by the response he is gotten from the community in a positive way. Since putting up the tower people from other areas of the town are calling or driving by to ask how they can do something like that in their community.

“It shows that there is a need for it,” he said.