Bell Aliant readies everything within its control for active hurricane season

Bell Aliant is ready to deal with any serious storm that might hit Nova Scotia during hurricane season, but the company’s director of network operations is hopeful the province will be spared.

“Bell is ready for those things I can control,” Geoff Moore said in an interview Friday, a day after the province’s Emergency Measures Office held a news briefing about preparedness.

“I can control the robustness of my network, I can control fuel, I can control backup power to my sites, what I can’t control is broken poles and trees falling on fibre cables.”

Moore said he is “very confident” in the steps the company has taken, including making generators available, stocking up on fuel and being proactive in seeking volunteers and technicians from Ontario and Quebec to travel to Atlantic Canada in the event of a serious storm. 

“I am confident that all of those things we’ve done are going to improve our ability to maintain service during an intense storm and obviously if there is an impact on our service, to be able to restore that service as quickly as absolutely possible.”

Bob Robichaud, warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada, said at the Thursday news briefing that 14 to 21 named storms are forecast by the end of the current hurricane season, including six to 10 hurricanes and two to five major hurricanes.

“It doesn’t necessarily mean that a lot of those storms will approach Atlantic Canada or have any kind of impact on Nova Scotia but we always have to be ready for that one or two storms that might actually impact us.”

Last year, Fiona was the only landfalling storm in Canada but it ripped through Nova Scotia.

Bell invests

Moore said Bell Aliant, learning from the destruction wreaked by Fiona last September, has since invested $20 million to purchase and install 150 fixed generators in both the mobility network and internet and landline network.

The company also added 15 portable generators across all of its networks and intends to spend another $20 million over the next two years to add approximately 100 more fixed generators.

“The sole intention is that when a site (Bell building or cell tower) loses commercial power, in addition to the batteries we have on site, the generators are there to support keeping that site powered up and delivering service to our customers,” Moore said.

He said at the end of this year, approximately 68 per cent of the mobility cell sites will have a permanent, fixed generator to supply standby power.

The majority of the generators are diesel powered and Moore said the company has worked with its suppliers to actively procure tanker trucks with diesel fuel in them so that in a major storm, Bell Aliant can break its dependency on traditional fuel supplies. 

That was a problem in the aftermath of Fiona.

Moore said powering sites is a major component of being responsive in a storm and the company has control of that response but the other piece is the distribution network – the poles, fibre cables and copper cables seen in every community in Nova Scotia and Atlantic Canada.

“Depending on where it, the storm, hits, the impact to that distribution network is very much unknown,” Moore said. “That’s where we have less control in terms of what that damage is. It’s where we work in very close partnership with Nova Scotia Power in terms of restoration.”

Moore estimates that 90 per cent of the utility poles in the province are shared among NSP, Bell Aliant and other telecommunications companies. Most are NSP property.

Matt Drover, the senior director of energy delivery with Nova Scotia Power, said at Thursday’s news conference that the utility spent about $25 million on vegetation management in 2022, another $32 million this year and intends to invest more than $40 million on vegetation management, primarily tree cutting and trimming, in 2024.

“When they do their vegetation management, we are a benefactor of that,” Moore said.

If a cell tower site loses power, a loss of cellular service will be experienced in that region, Moore said, explaining the importance of backup generator power.

He added that Bell is the largest investor in communications infrastructure in Atlantic Canada and has the largest cellular network in Nova Scotia, and it often has overlapping cellphone coverage from another site to access service.

Telus the same story

Moore said the tower site itself could have power but connection to the Bell Aliant building may be lost due to storm damage, resulting in loss of cellphone service. Still, he said there is a probability that such infrastructure damage could be bypassed to sustain service.

Cellphone towers are often shared by different companies, he said, but a customer in range of any carrier’s network ought to be able to place a 911 call.

Jacinthe Beaulieu, communications manager with Telus, said the company doesn’t respond to emergencies, it prepares for them year-round.

“In the last five years alone, we have spent over $110 million to respond to climate change and mitigate its impact on our networks,” Beaullieu said. “This includes investing in generators and solar-powered cell towers, lifting central offices in flood-prone areas and clearing brush to prevent fires from burning our equipment.”

Beaulieu said Telus does not own wireless infrastructure in Nova Scotia but works with its network partner, Bell, to maintain wireless service.

“Our support also extends to helping the affected communities with critical programs and well-being resources,” she said.

Moore said Bell nationally covers 99 per cent of the population with mobility coverage.

“Are there areas where service is better than others, absolutely,” he said, adding the company is continually looking at improving its networks.

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said the provincial Progressive Conservative government could go a long way in helping to improve cellphone service by releasing the cell service gap report that Churchill said has been ready for nine months but withheld by government.

“Any Nova Scotian living in a rural area will tell you, cell coverage is really challenging in a lot of areas and when extreme weather events come in and displace people, this becomes a major safety issue because people either can’t call for help or get in touch with their loved ones,” Churchill said. 

The Liberal leader said the consultant’s report, paid for by the Nova Scotia taxpayer, has been sitting on a desk for nine months “when we actually need the government to be looking at it, letting the public know where these dead zones are and working very quickly to fill them.”

Kelly Rose, communications manager for Build Nova Scotia, a provincial Crown corporation that facilitates development in the province, said the study, commissioned to identify gaps in cell coverage throughout the province, is still under review.

“Build Nova Scotia is currently working to implement government’s strategy to expand telecommunications infrastructure to enable access to global information and communications networks throughout the province,” Rose said. 

“The province is looking to better understand service levels and identify locations of critical gaps across the province. This data will guide the province in determining how best to develop solutions that improve cell coverage.”