In the recent February 1, 2017 Standing Committee meeting on Education and Economic Development, Minister MacDonald was questioned. One of the questions I asked was, “who specifically should people contact if they have bad internet?”, so that the government can work to address the issues.
The Minister said people should “Call our office right away.”
Slow Internet? Please contact the PEI Department of Economic Development and Tourism!
The department’s contact information is:
Phone: (902) 368-4230
Email: hmacdonald@gov.pe.ca
Shaw Building – North 5th Floor
95-105 Rochford Street
Charlottetown, PE C1A 7N8
PEI Government Internet Strategy Needs Public Input
The discussion at Standing Committee went like this:
Mr. Trivers: In your presentation you talked about you consulting with field experts. You’re creating a map of the province, identifying the grey areas and then coming up with an Internet strategy. Is that the way I understood it?
Kal Whitnell: Correct.
Mr. Trivers: And I wanted to know what the timing is on the different pieces of that and whether that information will be released to the public. For example, when would the map be complete with the grey areas? Will it be released to the public? And then when will the Internet strategy based on that map on your consultations with field experts be complete and will that be released to the public?
Kal Whitnell: I guess in terms of this – we have no specific deadlines or timelines at this point in time. We obviously are moving forward as quickly as possible. We’re in the preliminary stages, but in terms of making this public, I see the public and Islanders feeding this process and being a big part of this process. We’ve had some good discussions over the past week or so and we see that outreach to Islanders is going to be a significant part of all of this in terms of filling in those gaps and filling in the map and understanding where some of those civic addresses there might be, let’s call them underserved addresses, households or businesses. So I see the public playing a big role so I would see them feeding into this process and having (Indistinct) in that discussion.
Mr. Trivers: So who specifically should the public contact if they want to get on this list as being in a grey area?
Kal Whitnell: We are in the preliminary stages and we’re going to be looking at a potential mechanism to do that outreach (Indistinct) –
Mr. Trivers: So we don’t have a number for them to call or an email address or anything?
Mr. MacDonald: Call our office right away.
Mr. Trivers: So call the office of economic development and tourism?
Mr. MacDonald: Yeah
You can find the full transcript at:
http://www.assembly.pe.ca/sittings/2016fall/transcripts/19_2017-01-02-transcript.pdf
I live at 1001 Burlington Rd. I have explorenet..pay by the amount of data I use..no unlimited Internet but my neighbor that is approximately 600 m behind me on a dirt road has unlimited high speed. Thought we were all.supposed to be guaranteed high speed by now. I have called Bell a lot of times. I have been.told it’s not there problem that they don’t have yo provide me..so who’s fault is it? Getting frustrated!
Unfortunately, this sort of problem happens all to often. Please report your frustration directly to the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, and they are creating an internet strategy to determine how to help people like you. I can also forward on your message if you prefer.
Phone: (902) 368-4230
Email: hmacdonald@gov.pe.ca
The good news is that the government is planning to address what they call these “gray areas” on PEI, and there are a number of Internet Service Providers that are purportedly working to offer real high speed solutions by the end of 2017.
Thanks.
If bell only could only charge depending on the speed of internet they would be quicker to fix the problem.