BellMTS is ending their CDMA service, and that's putting a lot of pressure on emergency services in the Mossey River Municipality.
Reeve Ron Kostyshyn says the cell phones volunteer firefighters have relied on are becoming useless.
“The Fork River Fire Department, presently the firemen use their cell phones to communicate and in the event of an emergency situation. Now with the proposed dismantling of the flip phones the challenges are what other forms of device will they be able to get in to.”
The fleetnet system is one option but has not been installed in the municipality yet. Emergency services can also use pagers but are also unreliable.
Kostyshyn says if they invest in the fleetnet system, it will be a major financial hit to the municipality.
“I’m not sure how capable they are in out designated area. But as far as taxpayers of the Mossey River Municipality if we’re to get additional phones for our fire department, we’re looking at a cost of approximately four thousand dollars minimum.”
The Fork River Fire Department has 22 volunteer firefighters who live all over the municipality.
BellMTS says CDMA is the older 3rd generation (3G) wireless technology that is being replaced by Bell’s latest 4G LTE network, which now covers 97% of the Manitoba population.
