O-NET -- the locally-owned Internet service – and its sister entity, Olds Connected Community – could gain more business as a result of a convention attended by Olds Institute (OI) executive director Mitch Thompson.
Thompson attended the Canadian ISP Summit in Toronto last week.
It featured “everything from the big players like Telus and Bell to very small network operators and Internet service providers like ourselves,” he says.
“It's an opportunity to work with other folks and talk to them about how we could help serve their community.”
O-NET, owned and operated by the community through OI, is Canada's first community-owned and operated fibre-to-the-premises network, offering Internet, TV and phone services to businesses and residents.
Olds was the first community to provide customers with access to a full gigabit (or 1,000 megabits) per second of bandwidth.
The Olds Connected Community Network is the network that provides the capability to provide Internet, phone and TV services to customers. O-NET is the company that sends a signal down that network to provide the service.
“We have some notoriety in the fact that we were able to provide a gig service and have been the first to do that in the country, but getting out to the eastern part of the country gives you a chance to meet a whole bunch of people that we haven't had conversation with,” Thomson says.
There are two options, he says.
One is to bring other people to Olds who could also make use of the community network.
“There's an opportunity to let the rest of the world know that our network is here and available,” Thomson says.
For example, during the conference, Thomson met with a person who has several data centres.
“He was talking about the challenges in Saskatchewan and Manitoba in trying to get more companies like O-NET into their marketplace to serve residents in rural spaces,” Thomson says.
There are other opportunities too, he notes.
“There are different types of government bodies that need private networks. There are data companies that need private networks. There are other big businesses that need private networks,” Thomson says.
“So the Olds Connected Community Network is an asset that needs to be marketed and shared with the world. So does O-NET,” he adds.
“Opportunities like this give us the chance to tell our story to business, to government, to users of the network and also other service providers that we could work with or support.”
"There's an opportunity to let the rest of the world know that our network is here and available."MITCH THOMSON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OLDS INSTITUTE
