It is a necessary evil. It’s not very beautiful in the middle of the woods like that, except we needed it.
Over the past two years, life has completely changed in the village north of 49e Parallel. In my family, most of them took their home phones. When you want to mow the lawn or firewood, my brothers can tell if they have an urgent call
Says Rita Delaunier, a municipal employee.
In the village, the bill for wireless internet can be up to twice as much as in the main centers, depending on the provider, but not the cell phone bill.
This also facilitates Rita Delaunayer’s connections with the city’s CEO, Valerie Tremblay.
Before, we had no way of communicating. She had to come to the municipality to come and talk to me, while now we talk to each other 15 times a day to settle our little files, it’s great!
Valerie Tremblay explains.
to listen: The topic will be the subject of a presentation report Desautels on Sunday, from 10 a.m. on Ici Radio-Canada Première.
Connected for safety
Last winter, more than 2,000 snowmobiles stopped at the municipality’s relay. Le Chalet du 49e Two years ago, cellular access is critical to bringing life back to this massive density in the North.
Its general manager, Valerie Tremblay, believes cell phones are encouraging more people to stop at Notre Dame de Lorette.
Photo: Radio Canada/Catherine Paradise
As we can see, the gentlemen make their calls, send text messages to their girlfriend: “I’m in Lorette.” It is part of the zeitgeist.
Even for the villagers, safety is a big issue. Before the cell signal arrived, the young filmmaker in her forties had to walk seven kilometers in minus 40 degrees Celsius to find help after leaving the road.
fight perdition
As in many villages, the population in Notre Dame de Lloret is aging. More than half of the population of 189 is over 50 years old.
Laurie Bourgeois and her father, Alexandre, from the Lanudiere region, dream of reversing this trend.
Laurie Bourgeois and her father Alexandre encounter mosquitoes to develop farmland in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette.
Photo: Radio Canada/Catherine Paradise
They have just purchased land from 115 plots that they want to turn into a long-term northern agricultural cooperative.
Attracting young people can be a great goal! But without a cellular network, that would be out of the question
Alexandre Bourgeois answers.
Her 22-year-old daughter agrees, adding that she is already using the net to search for plants she discovers in her new environment.
Access to mobile phones made it possible for Laurie Bourgeois to learn about the pepper dunes that grow on her land.
Photo: Radio Canada/Catherine Paradise
Connected to Lac-Bouchette
The network of 12 cell towers including that of Notre Dame de Lorette extends to Lac Bouchet, across from Lake Saint-Jean.
Here too, Mayor Jesselyn Huddon’s business tactics have changed since three new towers went live in her strip in 2019 and 2020.
Last year I was at my hunting camp. Using my cell phone, I went looking up my internet and still had my meetings with the MRC in the middle of the woods.
The cell tower, visible from the Ermitage Saint-Antoine in Lac-Bouchette, allows visitors to get a good signal.
Photo: Radio Canada/Catherine Paradise
What makes Lac-Bouchette famous is the place of pilgrimage, the Saint-Antoine Hermitage of the Capuchin Brothers. But the holy place wants to renew itself, because religious tourism is declining.
Cell phone access is a major boost in the development of business and leisure tourism.
Head of marketing at Ermitage Saint-Antoine in Lac-Bouchette, Guy Thibeault, now uses cell phones as a selling point.
Photo: Radio Canada/Catherine Paradise
Currently, we are in, we are in Game, we have all the services to welcome with dignity, if we want, and from that moment, as they say, the ball is in our court
, explains marketing director Jay Thibault.
L’Ermitage even expected to be a banner year for business groups in 2020, and is now including cellular network availability in its ads.
profitability issue
Today, mobile coverage extends to 99% of the population of Canada and Quebec. But municipalities such as Lac-Bouchette and Notre-Dame-de-Lorette had to wait a long time before finally calling.
It is, after all, the Interregional ICT Development Agency (Help TIC), a non-profit organization, which allowed them to connect.
We are the only one of its kind in Canada. All companies that do something similar to what we do are private companies.
The agency differs from the model of the telecommunications and cable distribution cooperatives that have emerged in Quebec in recent years. TheHelp TIC It owns 26 telecommunications towers in rural areas, but rents out its wireless telephony infrastructure and the Internet operators that provide the service.
We own the infrastructure, towers, access roads, electrical networks, etc. Thus, the telecommunications device reduces the business risk by only having to invest its actual technological equipment.
The coordinator explains.
In his view, its subsidy-qualified business model and not guided by profits allows smaller communities to open up to the world despite their remoteness.
The full cell website has a value of between $750,000 and $1 million. If I made a list of all the municipalities in Quebec that would need service, starting with the most profitable, maybe if I asked Rogers, Videotron, or Bill what areas they would like to serve, they would tell me the top ten locations. We, what we are interested in, are the last ten people who will never have the opportunity, through their inhabitants, to see the development of technologies of this kind.
, is considered a coordinatorHelp TIC, André Neptune.
André Nepton shows that cellular coverage is now well distributed in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean.
Photo: Radio Canada/Catherine Paradise
André Nepton now hopes to facilitate cellular network development in other remote or mountainous locations not yet introduced in Quebec, particularly in Nord-du-Quebec and Bas-Saint-Laurent.
