By Thia James

Council expected to deny SaskTel permit for new telecom tower

May 7, 2013 | 6:29 AM

City council took a step towards denying Crown Corporation SaskTel a development permit for a new telecommunications tower in Prince Albert.

The tower would be located at 3919 Central Avenue on a lot that`s adjacent to an existing tower owned by local internet company Gotgeek. A motion put forth by Coun. Martin Ring to forward a recommendation to city council to deny the permit at this location was approved during Monday`s executive committee meeting.

Gotgeek`s owner, Donald Zurakowski, was added to the executive committee agenda at the last minute as a speaker to discuss his concerns about the proposed SaskTel tower.

“We might get away with things today, but down the road there are going to be other issues, developing from the fact that there`s spectrum being opened up, there`s bandwidth that’s being opened up,” he said.

“And I`d like to, as a free enterprise have the opportunity as a business to service the community using those bandwidths and not being hindered in that,” he said. He`s also concerned the new tower would also interfere with sight lines as well.

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Zurakowski`s company has been providing high-speed internet service to rural users since 1994. It operates at a different bandwidth than SaskTel`s tower would, but Zurakowski is concerned that the “noise” level from the proposed tower.

He said the government sets a maximum signal strength his company can use, but they also see all the “noise” or “splash” – the interference – transmitted by cell phones, cordless phones or car-door openers.

“Any time you have any interference coming in whatsoever, our noise keeps going up and it squeezes our margins and very soon you have nothing left to work with,” Zurakowski said.

In a letter to city planner Wes Holowachuk, SaskTel`s Brian Holowatuk, said that despite the proximity of the two sites, “based on our engineering studies SaskTel does not anticipate any interference will be caused by the SaskTel system to the Got Geek system.”

SaskTel, in an earlier letter, said that it chose that particular location because it already has a building on the site. In that March 14, letter, Rob Kaminski said the 25 metre stealth pole would be to improve 4G wireless service in Prince Albert. ¸

Upon approval and construction of the proposed tower, SaskTel would take down an existing temporary tower on Second Avenue West that deals with network capacity issues.

But Mayor Greg Dionne put the onus on SaskTel to present the city an example of a tower it has that`s side-by-side with another, private, company`s tower that it`s not interfering with.

“I know one thing, when you put something side-by-side, it`s going to be in conflict,” Dionne said. He said that when two power poles are put side-by-side, “you can get bad vibes.”

“I don`t support the big guy. The big guy has got lots of options, in my opinion,” he said.

Dionne said he drove around and could not find another instance where two competing towers stood side-by-side. He also drove out to the site of the existing Gotgeek tower, and to where the proposed SaskTel tower would be.

“It just didn`t make sense to me that how two things this close together, both giving off signals cannot interfere,” he said.

“Let the big guy go find another place.”

Council will have its final say on SaskTel`s permit during next Monday`s meeting.

tjames@panow.com

On Twitter: @thiajames