Highway 14 cellular services

Can you hear me now?

The construction of seven towers to expand cellular service on a 70-kilometre stretch of Highway 14 from Sooke to Port Renfrew has been pushed back to 2022.

A spokesperson for Rogers Communications, the project’s contractor, said crews are still building the towers.

“We remain dedicated to the completion of this important project as we address the global equipment and steel shortage, complexities of obtaining building permits as well as the challenging terrain in the area, and are on track to have coverage in service in 2022,” he said in an email to Black Press Media.


https://www.vicnews....pushed-to-2022/

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 29 October 2021 - 12:45 PM.

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“I have property in Jordan River that I’m currently building a house on,” Mike Morrison said in an email.

“I was hoping the cell service would be available by now so it would be easier to communicate and do research for the build while I’m out there. There are a lot of things to organize and deal with when building a house.”

 

FFS. Entitled much?

the article never really explains who this random Mike guy is.

He’s a guy building a house and had hoped he’d have cell service by now, as per the province’s announcement.

Anyways, it’s funny as I was looking up the tower permitting last night and thought holy smokes, still in permitting? Granted one of the towers is planned to stand 57 meters tall. That’s almost Orchard House tall.

it’s actually impressive they can do this with 7 towers.

You can access US signals from out that way. So you can, theoretically, buy a US SIM card and a cheap plan, and you’re good to go.

Every time I drive down Dallas road my phone switches over to a US carrier, when I get a little further away I get a "Welcome to Canada" text message.

A $50 extra cell phone bill after camping a t French beach due to picking up some US data sucked

Was just charged another $8 US roaming charges for visiting Sooke  .  Am on Telus and have called them many times to have the charges removed, but am usually out there at least once a month so it's up to me to call them and have the charges reversed.  My phone is set to not allow roaming and they have said they have set my plan not to allow it, but their settings seem to work as well as their "automated assistant" (useless).

Edited by On the Level, 30 March 2022 - 05:03 PM.

Was just charged another $8 US roaming charges for visiting Sooke . Am on Telus and have called them many times to have the charges removed, but am usually out there at least once a month so it's up to me to call them and have the charges reversed. My phone is set to not allow roaming and they have said they have set my plan not to allow it, but their settings seem to work as well as their "automated assistant" (useless).

We can send a man to the moon, but our AI can’t even detect an accidental international roam connection?

This was supposed to have been solved in October.

You’re lucky they even reverse the charge. Lots of people don’t get that courtesy and the carriers say it’s the user’s fault.

We need to build a wall.

If a phone pings in Sooke one minute, then the Olympic Peninsula 6 minutes later, software should be able to sort that out. It’s not rocket science.

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 30 March 2022 - 06:30 PM.

It’s such a cash cow for carriers that there’s no incentive. They just shrug and say when you receive the text message from a US carrier, it’s on you.

That’s quite shady.

Its super shady. They can make it work down to the meter, clearly Watch where you get the welcome to the US message when you cross a land border. The instant you drive out of the border crossing!

This happens to me probably once a month. I spend a good amount of time in the woods out near Sooke, and I'll often come home to an email letting me know about the roaming charges. I will call Rogers the next day, explain I live close to the border, and the charge is removed. Same thing happens the following month, rinse, repeat, etc.

Its super shady. They can make it work down to the meter, clearly Watch where you get the welcome to the US message when you cross a land border. The instant you drive out of the border crossing!

That's because the GPS in your phone is telling the system where you are, if you have location services turned on, and thus it knows exactly when you've crossed the border.  If - like me - you don't, that message comes in at more random locations.

Mike, is any of this working yet?

Negative. It was initially planned for October of last year.

Last I heard is there remain some obstacles to getting all towers situated. Whether that’s political or technical, or both, I can’t say.

The construction of seven towers to expand cellular service on a 70-kilometre stretch of Highway 14 from Sooke to Port Renfrew has begun.

According to Rogers Communications in a community bulletin, the first cellular tower west of Sooke went into service at the end of May.

https://www.vicnews....upgrade-begins/

Delays to the original schedule were incurred to avoid disturbing wildlife during the bird nesting season required

Edited by Victoria Watcher, 07 September 2022 - 02:18 PM.