CALEB NICKERSON
L’ISLE AUX ALLUMETTES March 2, 2021
The Allumettes Island municipal council, at their last meeting on March 2, unanimously passed a resolution demanding that Bell address the shoddy phone lines in the region.
Put forward by councillor Louis Lair, the resolution points out that the island has notoriously . . .
bad coverage for cell and internet service, meaning that landlines are essential communications infrastructure when it comes to emergency services. It demands that Bell immediately address the problems, since residents are still paying full rates for terrible service.
The resolution was also forwarded to Pontiac’s provincial and federal representatives as well as the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-Television Services.
The issue has been ongoing since the start of the year, with local farmer David Gillespie recording at least 10 outages in the first two months of 2021. He said that following complaints that he and his neighbours made, Bell technicians were in the area to fix the issues, but there continues to be interference on the line.
Allumettes Mayor Winston Sunstrum said that while the service has improved somewhat since the complaints were made, he was in favour of keeping pressure on the company to maintain consistent service.
“A couple of councillors have told me that their phones were better now, but it can fluctuate back and forth sometimes,” he said. “It may depend on the weather … The equipment is old [and] the lines often aren’t buried too deep in the ground.”
Having had some experience dealing with Hydro Quebec on the region’s electricity issues, Sunstrum said that this resolution is just the first step in a longer journey.
“I don’t think we’re going to get that improvement with one resolution, people will have to continue to call and complain themselves,” he said. “When we were affected with hydro, we had a couple hundred people in the hall a couple times. That creates a lot of pressure. Working with big companies takes a lot of effort if you want to have an impact. I would see this as just a starting point.”
