Cell phone coverage around the Saskatchewan-Manitoba border has long been an issue with inconsistent service on both sides leading to dropped calls and lack of trustworthy communication.
The problem isn’t in just one area near the border, many Saskatchewan residents from up and down the border have struggled with the situation.
Untrustworthy communication can create problems for those who work on large areas of land in rural Saskatchewan and residents hope something will change.
Doug Longman lives just over a mile from the Manitoba border in the Maryfield area and says despite having a SaskTel tower on his land, there are constant problems with cell service.
“There’s all kinds of issues,” said Longman. “About 15 years ago they came along to put a tower on my land and I thought it over and thought it’s probably better for me and a lot better for the community to have good cell service—I never thought anything about if it would be directional or anything—and so they put the tower up. I work with my son and we have a beekeeping operation and our yard is just about two miles east from the tower, but we get terrible cell service because it’s directional and shoots to the west.
“If I get a call sometimes it works, but you can’t depend on it. I can see the tower from my yard and I might be able to make a phone call or I might not be able to make a phone call—texts work a little better than calls, so we use texts.
“We employ a couple summer students every year and we’ve got bee yards all along the border but no way to communicate.
“About two and a half miles southeast of the tower we have one yard and two of our young guys went into the yard last year and when they left the yard three hours later we got a text saying, ‘there’s a bear in the yard with us.’ It turned out okay for them, but you need to have reliable communication.
“One of the boys we employ over the summer lives right on the border on the Manitoba side and they’re in the same boat, they have no cell service,” he said. “It’s all just hit and miss all around the border and I’ve gone after SaskTel and I’ve written the minister—their solution is that I could buy an extender, well that’s about $600 and we’d need one at the honey house, one in each vehicle, and when it’s said and done we’d be looking at about $2,400 to communicate.
“It’s not just in Maryfield either, go all along the border and it’s the same issue. Go to Welwyn it’s the same, go anywhere on the border.”
Over four miles from the border east of Rocanville, Murray Reid still has issues with cell service on his farm and can’t believe the issues the closer you get to the border.
“Welwyn is two miles from the border and it’s bad there,” said Reid.
“At our farm here, we put a cellphone booster on the tower and that kind of improved it when we’re in the house, but when we’re at our barn you’ll talk for maybe two or three minutes and then the call drops. We can see the tower at the mine from our yard and it’s still not great—I think there’s too many people using that tower because of the mine. It’s not all the time for us, weekends are better, but I think there’s just so much traffic on the tower at the mine.
“It used to be we’d be on a Manitoba tower most the time and it wasn’t bad, but then they put the one in at the mine and it’s been a problem.
“When we go up and go fishing in the far north—the tower is probably 20 miles from us—we get excellent cell service up there. It’s disappointing that you can go up into the sticks and get better cell service than near Welwyn or Maryfield.”
