Newmarket resident Phil Parsons has not been happy with his internet service ever since a widespread Rogers outage last summer.
Since then, he said he has struggled with unstable connectivity. The difficulties have led him to consider a new option: picking up service with a much smaller new internet service provider (ISP), telMAX.
“I’m excited about it because it will give us something that we’ve been looking for,” he said.
The new ISP expanding fibre service in Newmarket began connecting to homes this year while doing work to expand its service throughout town. While some have been eager to pick up the new option, others have expressed skepticism about its presence in the community.
The Oshawa-based service has launched in several communities, including Whitchurch-Stouffville, offering lauded speeds that earned it recognition in PCG Magazine. It started getting into Newmarket after purchasing the town-owned ISP, ENVI.
It installed its first customer earlier this month. Parsons said he eagerly awaits the service to come to his street and has had a positive experience in researching it.
“I’ve done a lot of digging to see what the company is,” he said. “We’ve never heard of them, but everything that I’ve read has been very positive.”
But Newmarket resident Lloyd Ainey doubts the telecom can find a good foothold. A senior partner at Toronto-based telecom Interface Technologies, he said the market has dried up in recent years. He was opposed to the town starting its ISP and said it can be very challenging getting people to switch.
He said there was more of an appetite for fibre and new technologies about a decade ago leading to more switches. But that’s dropped off in recent years, he said, with such things becoming more ubiquitous in the market.
A more amenable market was how he rapidly grew his own business, Ainey added. But in more recent times, it is difficult to convince prospective customers to switch, even when you can offer improved services, he said.
”It’s pretty dead,” he said. “People don’t change easily … They just waffle and waffle and I get tired of chasing that.”
A 2019 study from Canada’s Competition Bureau into ISPs found 90 per cent of Canadians reported being somewhat satisfied (52 per cent) or very satisfied (38 per cent) with their existing ISP, with eight per cent reporting to be not very satisfied and two per cent not at all satisfied.
About 62 per cent of those in the survey considered switching in the prior two years, but 30 per cent of those successfully did so.
Although Ainey said he has heard of complaints about some major telecoms, it does not necessarily manifest in customer switches, he said.
“Everybody’s got everything they need, and they’re not switching,” he said. “Someone has to really screw up badly before they switch.”
But telMAX marketing vice-president Meg Shephard said they feel they have an advantage being a locally based provider.
“We are local. We know the streets, the communities and the concerns and needs of our customers,” she said.
There are disadvantages, such as the size of marketing budgets, she added. But she further said they are not reselling older networks owned by the telecoms, but building their own lines in Newmarket and elsewhere.
“We are providing our customers with the latest and fastest fibre service,” she said, noting PCMag finding it to be the fastest ISP in Canada last year. “We are very proud of that distinction and our ability to bring that superior fibre network to Newmarket.”
Work gets messy
But some residents have also expressed concern with the ongoing work installing the new fibre lines.
Newmarket resident Danielle Lowe said the work has been an inconvenience around Coleridge Drive, and she wonders about repairs in the spring.
“It was just loud and had been hard to get in and out, especially with all the snow,” Lowe said. “They completely took out one of my neighbours lawns so it will be interesting to see if they actually fix it in the spring.”
Shephard said the company is dedicated to restoring land damaged and wants to do it when the weather is appropriate.
“The town inspects the work to ensure it meets their standards,” she said. “Once the warmer weather arrives, we will have a full landscaping restoration team out to ensure that all properties are returned to their original state.”
Regardless, some such Parsons do believe in what this new service can offer.
“I’m just excited about it,” he said. “Like a kid with a new toy.”
