The efforts of Rhineland council to see improved cell phone service come to the municipality appear to be taking a step forward.
"It appears that SLI towers is moving forward with two new wireless telecommunication towers in Rhineland," said Reeve Don Wiebe. "One is north of Gretna and another one is just north of Rosenfeld."
Etobicoke, Ontario based SLI Towers is a builder of towers and telecom infrastructure for the cellular network sector.
"The current application has all carriers in mind, and it has the ability to co-locate for all carriers, which means that providers such as Bell, Rogers, Telus and even Freedom Mobility can rest on that tower," added Wiebe. "In addition to meeting consumer and business needs, wireless networks are also created to ensure accessibility to emergency services such as fire, police and ambulance. These services, of course, are an integral part of Canada's safety infrastructure, and certainly of interest to Rhineland."
At this point, the Municipality has not received an indication from the company what its construction timeline may be.
Latest efforts in ongoing lobbying
For years Rhineland council has been actively lobbying for improved cell phone service in various parts of the municipality, most recently in Plum Coulee where as of January 2024 BellMTS completed the necessary construction to improve service in that community.
"Bell MTS worked on a plot of land and they got permission to build and all that stuff. They never gave us a detailed timeline, but we saw the construction proceeding, said Wiebe in a January 2024 interview with PembinaValleyOnline. "Then all of a sudden, without a lot of announcement, it was there! So that was kind of nice."
The much-improved service was made possible by the erection of a 104-metre guyed tower about 700 meters north of Highway 14 and Road 15 West.