KAGAWONG—Internet provider Vianet will begin the work to upgrade its equipment and services in the Billings area within the next couple of weeks.
Will Gasteiger, president of Vianet, told the Recorder on Friday of last week, “yes, we are going to start some work specific to Kagawong the second week in April. We have people scheduled to carry out this initial work over three or four days.”
However, Mr. Gasteiger explained, “it doesn’t mean everyone will get the new service at this point. The initial work we are doing will relieve congestion in the network as a whole.”
As reported earlier this year Vianet is looking to upgrade its equipment and services in the Billings township area. Mr. Gasteiger explained that, “in Kagawong, Vianet has a good customer base and at the current time has some issues with equipment and services that are going to be upgraded and improved. He noted that the useful life of the equipment in place in Kagawong has ended and the company needs to do some upgrades. Vianet will be putting more updated equipment in place to upgrade its services to customers in the Kagawong area.”
“I think the biggest thing is getting higher speed services in place and handling more customers at the same time with the Internet services we are providing,” explained Mr. Gasteiger, previously. “The current towers are limited to 1.5 meg speeds and we want to have this doubled.”
Previously, Vianet replaced the old equipment that had been in place in Sheshegwaning and replaced and upgraded it (equipment) to provide better services and to put the community back on the network, and in other areas like Gore Bay, Vianet upgraded the equipment some time ago.
“We’ve probably covered everything on the north part of Manitoulin to Meldrum Bay,” said Mr. Gasteiger. “We also have services in place in the Wikwemikong and Sheguiandah areas, although we do not currently have much in place on the southern part of the Island. However, we have application in to a funding agency to cover all of the Island, through Blue Sky out of North Bay, which has been delayed with the change in government.”
“We have made an application for government funding which is in the works but nothing has been finalized as of yet,” Mr. Gasteiger told the Recorder.
