A failure to communicate won’t be a problem for Telus cellphone and wireless Internet customers in south Nanaimo this new year.
The company is erecting a 60-metre telecommunications tower off Cadillac Place, parallel to Tenth Street, to better provide coverage.
Shawn Hall, Telus spokesman, said the company was looking to accomplish two things.
“One was to fill in some of those coverage gaps. There is a mall nearby, the highway as well as residential neighbourhoods where coverage needed to be improved,” he said. “We also needed to increase our capacity in that area. With the rapidly increasing use of wireless data services, we needed to add another site in the area to stay one step ahead of customer demand for wireless capacity.”
The tower is being built on Island Scales property in the industrial centre, and Hall called it a non-controversial site, one that was supported by the community.
“We saw a lot of interest for more coverage in this area and went through the standard consultation process where we put an ad in the newspaper and sent letters to area residents letting them know about it,” he said.“Overall, the sentiment was very positive and we were able to go ahead with building it.”