Ontera

Last updated
Ontera
Formerly
  • O.N.Tel
  • O.N.Telcom
Type Subsidiary
Industry Telecommunications
Foundedc. 1902 (1902)
Headquarters
North Bay, Ontario
Services DSL, wireless broadband, dial-up, landline, long-distance calling
Owner BCE Inc.
Parent Bell Aliant
Website ontera.ca

Ontera is a telecommunications company in Ontario, Canada and a subsidiary of Bell Aliant. It provides local telephone service in the Northern Ontario towns of Bear Island, Iroquois Falls, Marten River, Moosonee, Moose Factory and Temagami, and also offers long-distance services in most of area code 705.

Contents

History

Ontera was founded as the Ontario Northland Telecommunications division of the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a Crown agency of the Government of Ontario, in 1902. It was the exclusive provider of long-distance calling services in many rural Northeastern Ontario markets until the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approved long-distance competition in 2000. The name was changed to O.N.Tel Inc. in the 1990s, then changed its trading name to O.N.Telcom in 2000, and then renamed to Ontera in 2004. [1]

Divestment

In April 2014, the Ontario government announced it would sell Ontera to Bell Aliant. [2] [3] According to the Public Accounts of Ontario prepared by the provincial treasury board, the CA$6.3 million sale was made at a loss of $61 million. [4]

The acquisition was completed in October 2014. [5] Bell Canada, which had been the largest shareholder in Bell Aliant and most of its predecessors throughout their respective histories, took full ownership of Bell Aliant in late 2014.

Following its divestment, Ontera did not maintain investments in network infrastructure and stopped accepting new customers. [6] The municipal council of Temagami approved a resolution in September 2020 to lobby the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to require Ontera upgrade its infrastructure and allow third-party resellers. [7]

Network Infrastructure

Ontera provides customer-premises LAN, VoIP and Internet security systems, DSL, fibre optic and wireless data services. The company owns and operates an extensive fibre optic telecommunications network throughout most of Northeastern Ontario.

In September 2008, Ontera announced plans to install a ring network, to strengthen network reliability, which was completed by spring 2009. [8]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bell Canada</span> Canadian telecommunications company

Bell Canada is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered at 1 Carrefour Alexander-Graham-Bell in the borough of Verdun in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is an ILEC in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec; as such, it was a founding member of the Stentor Alliance. It is also a CLEC for enterprise customers in the western provinces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontario Northland Railway</span> Railway in Northern Ontario, Canada

The Ontario Northland Railway is a Canadian railway operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a provincial Crown agency of the government of Ontario.

Singtel Optus Pty Limited is an Australian telecommunications company headquartered in Macquarie Park, New South Wales, Australia. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singaporean telecommunications company Singtel. Optus is the second-largest wireless carrier in Australia, with 10.5 million subscribers as of 2019.

Bell MTS Inc. is a subsidiary of BCE Inc. that operates telecommunications services in Manitoba.

Bell Aliant is a brand name used by Bell Canada for telecommunications services in Atlantic Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eastlink (company)</span> Canadian cable television and telecommunications company

Eastlink Inc. is a Canadian cable television and telecommunications company. The privately held company was founded in Nova Scotia in 1969 by the Bragg family, and has grown since through the amalgamation of several telecommunications companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allstream Inc.</span>

Allstream is a business communications provider based in Mississauga, Ontario that provides IP connectivity, managed IP services, unified communications and voice services to its customers in the United States and Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tbaytel</span>

Tbaytel, formerly the Thunder Bay Telephone Company, is a municipally-owned telecommunications company operating in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada, and the surrounding area. Tbaytel's services include data, voice, wireless, internet, digital TV and security.

Island Telecom Inc. was a Canadian internet service provider in Prince Edward Island. Its headquarters is located in Summerside.

Internet access is widely available in New Zealand, with 94% of New Zealanders having access to the internet as of January 2021. It first became accessible to university students in the country in 1989. As of June 2018, there are 1,867,000 broadband connections, of which 1,524,000 are residential and 361,000 are business or government.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in Canada</span> Overview of the Internet in Canada

Canada ranks as the 21st in the world for Internet usage with 31.77 million users as of July 2016 (est), making up 89.8% of the population. According to Harvard researchers, Canada has some of the lowest internet standards among OECD countries, as a result of high costs and slow internet speeds.

The Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC) is a Crown corporation and development agency of the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines in the Canadian province of Ontario, whose purpose is to provide funding and program support to foster economic development in the economically disadvantaged Northern Ontario region.

<i>Northlander</i> Canadian passenger train

The Northlander was a passenger train operated by the Ontario Northland Railway in Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontario Northland Transportation Commission</span> Crown agency of the Government of Ontario

The Ontario Northland Transportation Commission (ONTC), or simply Ontario Northland, is a Crown agency of the Government of Ontario responsible for providing transportation services for passengers and goods in northern Ontario. It reports to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario through the Minister of Transportation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ontario Northland Motor Coach Services</span>

Ontario Northland Motor Coach Services is an intercity bus service operated by the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission, a Crown agency of the government of Ontario, Canada. Ontario Northland Motor Coach Services operates passenger and parcel transportation service in northern Ontario, with additional routes connecting northern Ontario to the Greater Toronto Area, Winnipeg, and Ottawa.

Fibe is the brand name used by Bell Aliant for its suite of fiber to the home (FTTH) unified communication services, including Internet access, IPTV, and home telephone service, available in much of Atlantic Canada and previously in some regions of Ontario and Quebec. The Fibe service covers an entire urban area with a fibre optic network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TekSavvy</span>

TekSavvy Solutions Inc. (TSI) is a Canadian residential, business, and wholesale telecommunications company based in Chatham, Ontario. In most of the country, it is a wholesale-network-access-based service provider and voice reseller, connecting its service to existing last mile networks from telecom carriers Bell Canada and Telus Communications, and cable carriers Rogers Communications, Cogeco Cable, Shaw and Vidéotron. However, in parts of rural southwestern Ontario, the service is provided over TekSavvy's own fixed wireless network. Recently they have also rolled out their own fibre optic network in parts of southwestern Ontario

Phase3 Telecom is an aerial fiber optic network infrastructure provider, providing connectivity, network management and data storage services to wholesale, enterprise and retail customers across West Africa.The company was incorporated in 2003 and is headquartered in Abuja, Nigeria. Licensed by the Nigerian Communications Commission in 2006 - the company in 2014 and 2018, added more kilometers to its existing coverage area with footprint expansion of its MPLS network and fixed broadband services. They now operate a 6,000 kilometres (3,700 mi) and counting open-access aerial fibre optic network. The company has been vital to growth in Africa's growing ICT market, implementing the Wire Nigeria Project—conceived by the Nigerian Communications Commission to help provide broadband communications access to rural communities. Phase3 has a broad range of wholesale and enterprise clients including Glo, MTN, 9Mobile, Ntel, Airtel, Smile Communications, World Bank, Julius Berger, Unity Bank e.t.c. Some of the African countries where the company currently has partner operations include Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Republic of Niger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xplore Inc.</span> Canadian internet provider

Xplore Inc. is a Woodstock, New Brunswick-based rural internet service provider. It is the largest rural focused broadband service provider in Canada.

Distributel is a Canadian telecommunications company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario, founded in 1988 as an independent service provider offering Canadians Long Distance phone service. Distributel now offers a wide range of high speed Internet plans in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta as well as VoIP Digital Home Phone service across Canada. Distributel also provides IPTV in all major markets in Ontario and Quebec.

References

  1. ↑ "History". About Us. Ontera. Retrieved 10 June 2016.
  2. ↑ "Ontera sale to Bell Aliant leaves questions for customers, employees | CBC News".
  3. ↑ "Ontario Newsroom".
  4. ↑ Brennan, Richard J. (September 30, 2015). "Provincially owned telecom firm sold at loss of almost $61 million". Toronto Star. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  5. ↑ Hamilton-McCharles, Jennifer (October 1, 2014). "Bell Aliant acquires Ontera". North Bay Nugget. Archived from the original on August 7, 2017. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
  6. ↑ MacDonald, Darren (3 June 2020). "Renewed push to bring high-speed internet to rural areas, including the north". CTV News Northern Ontario. Retrieved 3 November 2020. Years ago, Ontera, a provincially owned corporation, provided decent access to rural areas for $25 a month. But it was sold to the private sector, which didn't invest in the infrastructure and wouldn't take on new customers.
  7. ↑ Mountain, Jamie (September 10, 2020). "Temagami looking for better internet options". BayToday. Thunder Bay, ON. Retrieved 3 November 2020.
  8. ↑ "Ontera customers to Benefit from Investment in State-of-the-Art-Network". Ontera press release. 2008-09-24. Retrieved 2011-01-31.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.