The tornado over the weekend brought the issue of cell coverage in rural Manitoba to everyone’s attention.
Many people in the RM of Alonsa were not able to take proper precautions because they did not receive any kind of alert or information about the weather risks.
Alonsa Reeve Stan Asham shares with us how over time cell reception in the Interlake is getting worse over time.
“We haven’t had cell service, about the middle of May we noticed and now it’s down to nothing. We used to get service from across the lake. I live north of the beach and I would get cell service, sometimes from the Ebb and Flow tower and sometimes the one at the first nations across the lake. But I could always text, but now I can’t even do that.”
Asham says there were a number of problems that came from not having the service available in an emergency.
“That was devastating not to have that service when that storm came along. People weren’t warned, they never got warnings on their cell phones, you know, they are supposed to beep when the warning comes. There was none of that to warn and people were trying to get ahold of the people at the beach who just had their cell phones. They saw it coming and never had much time to get out of there. Some of them did. Two people, the owner of the beach and some other guy rode it out. But they’re lucky.”
Around May and June, a good number of customers had no cell service for 6 weeks after cell towers near Amaranth and Ebb and Flow were being upgraded.
One of the reasons for lack of service, according to Bell MTS, is that they have been upgrading the network in the Amaranth and Ebb and Flow area with LTE Advanced. The new towers have reduced coverage compared to older HSPA technology.
