Nowadays, having secure communications is vital and residents of Cedar Point Road and Thunder Beach could get a better signal in the years to come.
Tiny Township committee of the whole recently heard a presentation by Jay Lewis of Forbes Bros. Ltd., on behalf of Rogers, for two new cell towers that could service the northern parts of the township.
A 50-metre self-support tower (SST) telecommunication site was proposed for 1445 Cedar Point Rd., as well as a 60-metre lattice tri-pole (LTP) tower proposed for 1369 Chemin du Loup Rd.
“One of the objectives to Rogers,” said Lewis, “is to ensure that there is continuous coverage wherever wireless users live, use, work, play; and we do that by having a number of existing sites throughout an area.”
He added, “These sites will provide both cellular and mobile broadband internet, as well as fixed wireless internet services to the community.”
Lewis also pointed out that the SST was proposed in 2019 at a 75-metre height, but during public consultation concerns arose regarding visibility of the tower. Other concerns involved coverage and connectivity, with Rogers returning to the recent meeting with a proposed lower height on that location.
Through coverage maps displayed on council’s screens, Lewis was able to show an on-and-off comparison if the proposed towers were accepted and installed.
“If we take a look at the one that’s on Cedar Point Road,” said Lewis, “you can see that it improves the area a fair bit there. It will not address the coverage along the actual shore due to the topographic change between those areas. And then the site that is off Du Loup Road, it does improve the coverage in Thunder Beach.”
Lewis stated that capacity and demand were also factors for consideration; new towers would reduce the strain on other towers hosting an overburden of connections, which was the cause of many dropped calls and poor connectivity throughout the region.
It was a point that Coun. Kelly Helowka had also observed.
“Just recently, there’s been probably more reported dropped calls in the township of Tiny than I’ve ever seen in my almost decade of living here,” Helowka said. “This seems like this is a dire necessity as far as I’m concerned.”
Mayor Dave Evans also spoke to the lack of coverage in the northern part of the township, and related it to Beausoleil First Nation.
“I did a speech at Cedar Point which is just at the gates to the reservation up there, and I can attest that there was no cell coverage,” Evans stated. “I was just curious, will it cover Christian Island as well? For our Indigenous friends and neighbours that are up there, I’m just wondering if that has any benefits for them.”
Lewis said it wouldn’t. “The signal strength, it all depends on the height of the antenna. But depending on the height, you might get between two and five kilometres of range; if you have a 100-metre guide tower you might be able to get up to the five-to-eight kilometre range. But it’s very limited to the signal strength.”
According to the Tiny Township map of cell towers, Christian Island is serviced by point-to-point telecommunications from Cedar Point with coverage on the southeast area of the island.
Deputy Mayor Sean Miskimins asked about the reduction of height on the proposed SST, with Coun. Steffen Walma pointing out that it was a concern shared by the previous council.
“During the pandemic, connectivity became more important than ever before,” said Walma. “We’ve had this same discussion on a Zoom council meeting in the past. I’m not sure if you’re aware but we’ve had a Bell tower proposal for the back of our fire hall.
“The council at that time was supportive – we asked the question: ‘Why aren’t you going higher?' The recommendation from this council was to explore those higher tower heights," said Walma.
“From our experience,” Walma continued, “people who have a negative look on something like aesthetics for a tower or something like that are obviously going to be very vocal, but we hear it from everybody all the time that connectivity is important.”
Walma offered that the committee could ask Lewis to return to Rogers with those height concerns in mind to be addressed at a potential future public consultation meeting.
“When you build it, it’s not like you’re going to change it after it’s built. I think this is one of those things that you want to look at the best you can the first time," said Walma.
The proposed cell tower presentation from Rogers, including coverage area maps, can be viewed within the agenda page located on the Tiny Township website.
Archives of council meetings are available to view on Tiny Township’s YouTube channel.
