See? I remember the dark days of regulated telephone service well. Now instead of that crappy $14 a month phone service we have a choice of $80 a month plans. Fort Fraser, Vanderhoof and FSJ lost 8 or 9 full-time employees who paid taxes and shopped here and I ge to wait 3 months for business services and pay $2000 for the honour of getting them.
When they add Rupert you’ll get to meet “the guy” who does the fibre connections. They’ll add Rupert to his area.
Rogers will be a good example to use. Once the radios are up, you won’t have one single person who get a paycheck from Rogers living in your town. You’ll do everything thru The Source or Wireless Wave and they’ll get their $20 once for signing you up. After that every nickel you spend will feed the bank in Toronto. $90 a month fed out of town for the length of your contract, $20 for the reseller to divvy up to spend in your town.
Funny thing to rejoice about.
If nothing else, competition will keep Citywest on its toes.
I mean the data thing is a perfect example. Years and years of “we can’t do it, it’s not technically possible, it’s too expensive” and all it takes is a rumour of Rogers coming to town and presto, it’s available.
I couldn’t agree more.
I agree, every month as Citywest expands there looking to hire people that will spend that money in our area. These are the people that shop at my work and how I make a living. Not the bank in Toronto, not the call center in Vancouver or where ever they maybe.
Now for competition lets look at Northwest Savings. They are a little fish in a big ocean of the Big Banks. How do they do it? There not scared of the big competition yet they can make money and keep local people employed. They have moved into the Terrace market and even baught out some of the competition there as well.
If we could just get Citywest to fix some of the problems of “what the heck they are doing” by posting something on there outdated website I think the community might get an insight of what they could be capable of. Oh yah and put there PR guy Mr. Brown in the back room making cat5 cables or something so they don’t look like idiots.
First off I’ll admit that CityTel had a good DSL service back in the heyday.
The past couple of years the DSL has been terrible, I’ve had to completely give up on playing FPS games online, it’s just no fun with 200+ ping.
70 ping to a local server? 200 to seattle servers? this is as good as it gets. no i dont have spyware, no i am not downloading/uploading, and this is off-peak time (11pm thurs)
If they do not fix this by the time a competitor starts up, I’ll happily leave Shittywest.
Rejoice indeed Sneetch. I know many that feel the same way.
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What you have to keep in mind is that PR has a backbone problem. What your seeing is related to demand outgrowing the current backbone.
Fixing that is the very thing that will allow competition to arrive, they aren’t going to some before they have the bandwidth.
Then it’s your choice who to support. Take enough support away from Citywest and you will literally screw yourselves completely.
When the little employers go things snowball. Amenities leave.
The Fort lost 2 BC Tel guys, the Hydro guy, the PNG guy in short order. No one notices a payphone overflowing when he’s out for a beer and has it fixed next morning. No one notices the tree too close to the line before it falls and cuts service. No one to tell you how to troubleshoot your DSL while you’re waiting in the checkout line. Five more homes on the market driving prices down and five less people going for lunch, dinner, coffee breaks, buying shoes and socks and cereal for their kids, keeping those amenities profitable.
Don’t kid yourselves, PR could easily become a bedroom community for Terrace. Just like Burns Lake, Fraser Lake, Fort Fraser, Vanderhoof and Fort St James (and to a certain extent Quesnel) have been reduced to for Prince George.
You should be more than backing Citywest, you should be up there demanding a say in making sure it runs properly and postures itself for competition.
ppl have to remember that CityWest had to be incorporated because CRTC Ruled years ago it had to be arms length from City Council, as for the Councillors concern about losing control of Citywest, the article states that Citywest Directors can appointment directors only if Council does not appoint someone within a certain time period in other words if they sit on their hands too long citywest themselves will decide on it, it ensures prompt selections to the board of directors
Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, Citywest doesn’t seem to respond to its customers or to its own rules anymore. Witness the lack of a dividend, or the lack of their required meetings, etc – even though they are bound to do these things legally.
The only thing Citywest seems to react to is the threat of competition.
CityWest has to be able to provide revenue to the city. If it is unable to then there really is no point in the municipality owning this corporation. It has to serve the community better both in regards of revenue and being open and accountable.
Your first point is interesting … unfortunately when an individual, corporation or government has limited resources it must make decisions on where to employ it’s assets. My argument is that I should not be paying taxes to a municipality to engage in a high risk industry and provide local employment when they are unable to keep up with the basic infrastructure that is their primary responsibility. A municipality’s responsibility is not to create jobs but to provide the environment that attracts industry and business who will then create jobs. My point is that our council is not doing this by continuing to keep it’s significant investment in a high risk second class telecom when they could use their monies invested in CityWest to
- Pay off their debt and
- Do something about the local roads and sewers
- Attract a world class telecom provider or providers to Rupert to provide business and industry with the services that are required by them.
I mean only in Rupert can you wait a year to see a major arterial road torn up for a year while the city scratches it’s *** to fix several blocks of antiquated sewer and water pipe.
Your second point is interesting as well but if you are referring to Northern Savings it is part of a co operative movement and is supported by the Credit Union Central of BC and Canada … don’t know how many credit unions there are but they number in the hundreds at least… the only reason that Northern Savings and other credit unions are able to compete with banks is because of this association. Having said this, I’m not sure the service provided by Northern is any cause to use them as an example.
CityWest is an anachronism that is one of the few remaining throwbacks to a simpler and fully regulated time… Over the last few decades, other small teleco’s have faced reality whereas our council seems to be very adept at avoiding facing up to reality or avoiding hard decisions unless they have no choice.
If we truly want to attract more people and businesses to Prince Rupert, we do it by being open for business, providing lower taxes for businesses and people and being prudent with how our money and assets are employed.
On your last point, their PR flack Mr. Brown is actually the General Manager of CityWest… the key individual in that company that we entrust with leading CityWest in it’s battle against competition… While your comments may be a bit harsh, somehow I don’t take comfort from the fact that the top dog in a company we own is better suited to making cat5 cables.
If you are talking about replacing Brown with a more qualified individual…every business in Canada is asking where it is going to find ppl to replace the baby boomers and they are not coming up with good answers… take a look at CityWest and ask yourself how they are going to replace a good portion of their skilled labour over the next 5 to ten years…
As I’ve responded to another poster, I don’t believe that the communities resources should be used in the high risk telecom and cable industries for local employment when the community is both carrying a high debt load and unable to keep it’s basic infrastructure up to a reasonable standard. There is a very real cost and risk to taxpayers when the council decided to expand CityWest’s operations into Cable. Instead of using the proceeds from the sale of CityWest to pay down their debt and bring their basic infrastructure up to date… our taxes and other hidden forms of taxation known as user fees have risen astronomically.
Our taxes are amongst the highest for municipalities and this is just one further detriment to people and businesses that wish to start or move to Prince Rupert. Not to mention the lack of a first class telecommunications provider!
[quote=“herbie_popnecker”]
What you have to keep in mind is that PR has a backbone problem. What your seeing is related to demand outgrowing the current backbone.
Fixing that is the very thing that will allow competition to arrive, they aren’t going to some before they have the bandwidth.
Then it’s your choice who to support. [/quote]
- The fiber connection has been completed to Terrace so the backbone problem has been dealt with.
- Competiion is coming and we are risking a great deal on the gamble that Mr. Brown the cat5 cable maker and his people can compete effectively in their own backyard with a highly leveraged company with a high debt load and obsolete facilities.
If wishes were the way that business and economics worked… I might be tempted to go along with risking our money on brown and company. Council has seen with Skeena that the world operates a bit harder than that and we still see no real debate among taxpayers or accountability from council.
So you don’t believe in using community resources to actually help your community? You’re more concerned with lowering your own taxes, or the faint promise of lowering your own taxes?
Or parroting the well mouthed concern that a community/state owned enterprise can’t possibly be as effective and beneficial to all as a private corporation, using Skeena Cellulose as an example?
How very American. How very Harper. How very Campbell of you.
They would have let Terrace die and still be trying to rebuild itself from a ghost town instead of making any attempt to save an entire town. Or done stupid things like trash-talk the fast ferries so well they hung an albatross around their own necks.
Those unemployed Citywest workers will really benefit from lower taxes.
The banks vaults in Toronto are counting on you to persuade others. They want all your money. They promise to be benevolent to Prince Rupert.
Sorry if the anti-conservative rants are a little pointed, but I believe that is exactly what our tax dollars need to be used for: building sustainable communities, not just somewhere you sleep when you’re not toiling to ship resources out so someone else can make better profit margins.
Exactly, because we all know that Reagan’s voodoo, trickle-down economics worked so well down south.
The rich corporations get richer, they out-source jobs overseas to further maximize profits. People in record numbers are losing their homes down in the USA.
This tired Conservative mantra of cutting taxes really makes me laugh. Because we all know the private sector will step in and fix an ailing infrastructure and bail us out. Bullshit. Corporations care about one thing. Profit. The large corporations are not interested in creating well-paid jobs which will result in taxpayers injecting money into an economy. Poor people don’t pay a lot of taxes.
The Conservatives, BC Liberals will only be truly happy when everyone makes a minimum wage, the unions are broken, and we become another third world country…Mexico North. 
Look at the history of your town and mine:
They took out the fur, then bust.
They took out the wood, then bust.
They took all the fish, then bust.
They took all the wood, then bust.
Now the solutions is to ship out the gold, then what?
Someone has to carry the sustainabile communities torch. NDP? Greens? It’s up for grabs. We know the Tories and Libs won’t.
If a major player were to take over CityWest I’d rather it be through a purchase rather than because of it’s failure. CityWest is not doing what it is required to. It is to be a source of revenue for the city and it has failed to hold public meetings as required. I understand your point about unemployed CityWest workers. Who is to say that many jobs here will not be maintained? It’s all speculation. The taxpayer here in general has survived through some very tough economic times. As things are improving there has not been really any relief except perhaps the value in ones home has risen. There is alot of work to be done here and the city holds an asset that could potentially solve many problems if it was able to supply some revenue.
Where does the City of Prince Rupert’s responsibility lie? Maintaining a cable TV and telecommunications company or doing it’s absolute best to repair and maintain infrastructure and services? If CityWest was actually able to provide revenue to the City then it would be a no brainer but since it is unable to in these times of recovery then all options should be explored.
The Conservatives killed the plan to sell RTI and both the Conservatives and provincial Liberals have contributed alot to the start up of our port. I think they’ve done wonders for the sustainability of our community. I don’t wish to get into a political debate but am I wrong?
Not at all. The Libs and Tories did spring funds for the Port, and that is the best thing happening there. Nobody’s oppose that. But what about the rest, making sure you don’t just sleep in Rupert and go to work shipping things in and out.
Economies are like ecologies, they can shrink to nothing, expand exponentially but one small part can affect the entire thing. All parts need to be addressed.
The other bright thing is talk of the casting plant in Terrace. Sending molten aluminum from Kitimat to be be cast in Terrace is a super thing. No way anyone could remelt the stuff to cast somewhere else and be competitive. No need to waste energy elsewhere to remelt it. Secures work for Kitimat, shipping for Rupert. Hard to see any downside in that one!
I heard a tidbit of this rumour some time ago. I believe that it was all part of a strategy to get the District of Kitimat to ease up on the power sales issue. Threatening to leave raises a few eyebrows. There’s no way that you could ship molten aluminum to Terrace. In Alcan they have a very distinct roadway just for the transport of hot metal. There’s no way that you will ever see that stuff on the highway. Too dangerous.
It would go by rail, in specially designed cars.
I would fear the day under-cutting cousins of immigrant truck drivers with no license, no brakes, and bald tires wheeled molten aluminum through city streets…