Western’s long-suffering cell phone users have been waiting on this call for some time.
Today, Western and Bell Canada officials announced a “significant investment” by the company over three years to improve cellular capacity and coverage across campus.
“We are beyond excited,” said Mona Brennan-Coles, Telecommunications Business Solutions manager with Western’s Information Technology Services (ITS). “It has been a really positive process, a two-year process. This has been an excellent partnership internally and externally. Everybody has worked really well – and quickly – to roll this out.”
According to the deal, Bell has committed $3 million over the three years to operating a distributed antenna system. Bell will deliver cellular signal onto the Western campus via fibre-optic cable. That signal will then be distributed to buildings with capacity/coverage issues as well as heavy-trafficked outside spaces.
What that means is a stronger, more dependable signal for Bell and, in turn, Telus customers, who partner with the Bell network.
And the benefits, according to Bell, should be immediate for their customers.
Phase One of the project was completed this month. In-building systems have been installed in the University Community Centre and Western Student Services Buildings. A macro site is being installed on the roof of the D.B. Weldon Library to provide increased capacity and coverage to the Concrete Beach and surrounding areas.
Western listened to comments from users, Brennan-Coles said, and focused the initial phase on high-traffic student areas.
The fix also eases the burden on the off-campus network, as Western on-campus users will no longer be competing for signal.
Brennan-Coles said Bell is leading the project to design and build a system that will work with other major Canadian operators. Western has worked with Bell to ensure campus infrastructure supports the Bell and Telus customers who will see increased coverage.
Thus far, Rogers has declined to participate.
“The partnership with Bell has been amazing,” Brennan-Coles said.
This past summer, Bell was selected as Western’s preferred vendor for cellular services through an RFP process that included Procurement Services, Facilities Management and ITS. Western’s initial agreement with Bell began on Aug. 1 and ends on July 31, 2017. Western has an option to extend the contract twice for successive one-year extensions.
“Bell is our preferred vendor, and we would encourage people to consider them,” Brennan-Coles said. “The university wins by getting good plans, and better capacity and coverage at the centre of campus.”
Going forward, Bell and Western will continue to evaluate the increased capacity and coverage and will decide on the next areas to be serviced. In each of the next two years, two more in-building systems and one macro site will be completed. Locations will be determined according to need after a post-implementation site survey.
The move provides hope to a long-suffering campus when it comes to cell service.
ITS has heard the complaints about cell phones for years – poor service, dropped calls, slow network speeds. Last fall, Queen’s University, University of Waterloo and Western experienced major cellular service failures.
But Western’s ITS could not offer much assistance as the university isn’t in the cellular network business. Smart phones created some confusion between the wireless network managed by the university, which has seen some improvements over the last year, and the cellular networks managed by private companies like Bell, Rogers and Telus.