Westcan Wireless Signs $3.5 million Contract with Parkland County for Rural Communications Project

July12, 2010 (Edmonton) Westcan Wireless signed a $3.5 million contract with Parkland County for the design, construction and operation of a broadband backhaul network consisting of 9 new telecommunications towers, and the upgrade of 1 existing tower in the County. This Rural Communications Project is part of Parkland County’s multi-phase “Intelligent Community” initiative that will facilitate high-speed broadband services in the rural areas of the County.

“Providing access to reliable, reasonably-priced high speed broadband to the un-served areas is a Parkland County Council strategic priority…” says Al McCully, General Manager Community Services, “Using the Intelligent Community tools being developed will go a long way to helping enable rural residents to maintain their communities and enhance the competitiveness of rural businesses”.

The new Network is designed as an open access, carrier-grade backhaul system. Each of the tower sites will connect to Alberta’s SuperNet. This will help reduce capital costs for Internet Service Providers (ISPs), thereby allowing them to viably provide high-speed Internet services to the lower density populated areas of the County. The towers will be designed and located not only to support multiple ISPs, but also will also be built to a standard to support other tenants such as Alberta First Responders Radio Communication System (fire, police, ambulance), rural gas cooperatives, energy and utility companies, as well as providing a foundation for a future wide area network for the County’s own services.

“Parkland County has taken a very innovative approach to delivering high speed broadband services to its constituents…” says Craig Baker, General Manager of Westcan Wireless, “we are proud to be involved in this important project, and look forward to commissioning this network and providing operations and support services for the next 5 years.”

Parkland County is a rural municipality located immediately west of Edmonton. Covering an area of 242,595 hectares (599,500 acres), it is one of the largest in size and at 30,000 residents, has the second highest population for conventional rural municipalities in Alberta. Parkland County has also been ranked recently by Alberta Venture magazine as being the “2nd Best Community in Alberta to Do Business”.

Westcan Wireless has delivered mission critical wireless communications projects and services in Alberta for over 33 years. With offices in Edmonton and Calgary, Westcan is Alberta's leading systems integrator in the turnkey design, engineering, deployment, commissioning and maintenance of Land Mobile Radio systems and engineered microwave backhaul and wireless wide area network solutions.

For more information contact:
Westcan Wireless: Craig Baker, (780) 451-2355
Parkland County: Al McCully (780) 968-8409