Last week, there were two matters of note making news in Snow Lake: the municipal election and MTS’s introduction of 4G cell service to the area.
It appears the community will hold an election for six council positions, but the mayor was acclaimed and there was very little interest in the school committee
Long-time community activist and businessperson Kim Stephen was the only person who filed papers for the position of mayor, but she will have to wait till Oct. 22 to see who will join her on council. Mayor Clarence Fisher has decided not to seek re-election.
There are 11 people running for the six seats: incumbents Angela Enright, Brenda Forsyth-Flamand, Aldon Kowalchuk and Dave Mayer; as well as newcomers Gordon Cann, Richard Jones, Lynden Kucharyshen, Peter Roberts, Robin Turnbull, Blake Warren and Jodie Wilson.
In respect to the school committee, there were five positions open; however, only a single person filed papers.
Kayla Ryan will be acclaimed to a position on the committee. District officials will then begin the process of finding four eligible persons to appoint to sit with her.
Of note, the Snow Lake Chamber of Commerce will hold a council candidate meet and greet on Oct. 9 at the Lawrie Marsh Community Hall.
In addition to having each person running for council state their aim and answer a couple of pre-determined questions, the chamber is hopeful that mayor-elect Stephen will also be on hand to present her platform.
The other big news last week was the much ballyhooed move to 4G service in Snow Lake.
Kelvin Shepherd, MTS’s president, recently advised that MTS’s 4G wireless network was set to officially launch the morning of Monday, Sept. 22 (while MTS completed upgrades and tested the new network, people with 4G devices like iPhones or iPads had limited service over the week or so leading up to the launch).
“I am very excited to be in Snow Lake to celebrate this launch,” he said. “It’s an important milestone for MTS and for the community.”
Latest smartphones
Shepherd advised that when MTS turned up the new 4G HSPA network on Sept. 22, community members would be able to use the latest smartphones in Snow Lake.
“Users can download mobile apps and stream video in seconds with 4G, thanks to data speeds that are up to five times faster than CDMA,” said Shepherd. “Users will also be able to choose from a large selection of 4G smartphones that can roam in more than 200 countries around the world.”
Asked about the range of the new service and whether it would be comparable to the range of the CDMA system (which saw people access cell service from anywhere in town and when in unobstructed areas, perhaps a 12-15 km radius around the town), Shepherd replied: “MTS’s new 4G HSPA wireless network is expected to cover about the same area as the current CDMA wireless network.”
Realizing that 4G was possible in the area, Shepherd says the company started limiting CDMA contract lengths to 12 months earlier this year.
He said customers on contracts can upgrade at any time but may have to pay an early termination fee on an existing contract
“It’s always been part of our plans to provide Snow Lake with 4G service,” Shepherd said. “We first needed to enhance the capacity of our transport network to be able to support this high-bandwidth service.”
If a person already has a 4G-compatible phone, they need only to purchase a MTS SIM card and choose from one of the company’s 4G Rate Plans.
However, if the phone is locked to another carrier, the customer will need to get it unlocked from that carrier first.
Noting that the next logical step in service would be 4G LTE, Shepherd was asked what would need to happen before that became a reality.
“LTE requires even more bandwidth than HSPA, and additional upgrades to our transport network would be required,” said Shepherd. “Right now, we are excited to be launching 4G HSPA in Snow Lake. Data speeds are about five times faster on 4G HSPA than on the existing CDMA network. We hope that the community will be really pleased to have access to this high-speed wireless data.”
My Take on Snow Lake runs Fridays.
