‘Ignominious anniversary’ of Hydro’s stalled broadband deal

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This article was published 26/08/2021 (1688 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A year after Manitoba Hydro stopped taking on new contracts for broadband network access, and three months after Xplornet won the bid to manage that network, critics are complaining the continuing moratorium has left would-be customers in the lurch.

Adrien Sala, NDP critic for Hydro, is calling on the Progressive Conservative government to end the stop sell order and disclose the revenue losses suffered from the disruption.

“It is taking far longer than anyone expected it to and it is creating further and further delays for a lot of ISPs (Internet service providers), school divisions and regional health authorities that have asked for service upgrades,” Sala said.

A spokesperson for Reg Helwer, minister of central services, confirmed that the Xplornet agreement has yet to be finalized but is expected to be soon.

The official said the delays are a result of the complexity of the agreement, the fact that there are three parties who are each conducting their own due diligence and that it is an agreement with several technical portions that require time to review.

The outsourcing of Manitoba Hydro Telecom (MHT) was ostensibly part of a larger restructuring of Manitoba Hydro’s non-core operations.

But the disruption in new service connections while a third-party agreement was worked out came at a time of acute demand for enhanced service during the pandemic from many areas of the province that have long endured very poor broadband connectivity.

“It has been a disaster,” Sala said. “The impact of the stop sell and the whole process has been huge. Large numbers of rural and northern communities have been forced to wait for improvement to their broadband connectivity, we have lost untold millions in economic development opportunities and we have lost out on huge profits for MHT that would have otherwise gone directly to Manitoba Hydro that would kept our Hydro rates low.”

Sala said there has never been a proper explanation as to why this had to happen, especially given that MHT had been doing an excellent job by all accounts.

“I think it is clear… it is because they (the Progressive Conservative government) are simply doing what they do,” Sala said. “They are looking at getting government out of something they believe should be delivered by the private sector. They are intent on privatizing bit by bit.”

Dave MacKay, the executive director of the Coalition of Manitoba Internet Service Provider (C-MISP) calls it an “ignominious anniversary”

He has said many times since last August that his members had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development that has been forced to be shelved. In some cases it has meant that his members have deployed capital in other provinces.

But MacKay said he is hopeful that an agreement with Xplornet could be forthcoming in the next few weeks and that business could start flowing again by sometime in September.

Meanwhile, Morden-based Valley Fiber Ltd. is undertaking a major broadband build-out in southern and central Manitoba with the assistance of $164 million from the federal government funded Canadian Infrastructure Bank. Among other things the MHT stop sell order is forcing Valley Fiber to lay its own fibre optic cable parallel to MHT’s in some areas.

“It is a huge embarrassment that Valley Fiber… has announced a massive project that will bring connectivity to a huge number of Manitobans but the PC government is nowhere to be seen,” Sala said.

Officials from Xplornet were unavailable for comment.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca