Some P.E.I. homes to pay extra for internet

Between 100 and 200 rural P.E.I. homes and businesses that will likely never be hooked up to conventional high-speed internet are facing higher bills to receive the service promised to all Islanders.

Bell Aliant is offering those homes a wireless connection with what's called a Turbo Stick, but heavy users of the internet will see much higher monthly bills than their wired neighbours.

Wired internet users pay about the same monthly fee as those who use the Turbo Stick, about $40 a month. But unlike the wired service, which allows unlimited downloads, the Turbo Stick package includes only 1 GB of downloads a month, about the size of a movie. Anything beyond that costs more.

Linda McCausland, a photographer in Point Prim, is worried about the extra charges she could face.

"For myself, using heavily laden graphics, I would be paying somewhere between $60 and $120 a month for something that every other Islander is getting for $45 a month, and that's just not fair," said McCausland.

Surcharges may not last

Bruce Howatt, vice-president of regional services for Bell Aliant, said average internet users will not be affected by the 1 GB threshold. He also suggested the premium for heavy use of Turbo Sticks could be temporary.

"Prices will definitely change as we go forward. When high-speed first started, it was a pay-per-use service as well, and that's since disappeared," said Howatt.

McCausland hopes that price gap disappears soon for her and the other 200 Islanders stuck with the stick.   

"If every Islander was promised high-speed, where along the line can you say, 'Well, you, who are on the outlying edges of our technology that we can't reach, you're going to have to pay three times as much,'" she said.

The provincial government has promised high-speed service for all Islanders, but McCausland feels this version of high-speed makes her a second-class citizen.