The Town of Olds, Alberta made headlines 11 years ago when it started its the first community run internet project, O-Net. Then, it made headlines again when it sold that network to Telus for at the end of 2024. Now, it’s come to light in public documents that the project was worth $11 million.
At a town council meeting in Olds, the city’s chief administrative officer, Brent Williams, mentioned that the $11 million from the Telus sale is being put up against the town’s debt.
The O-Net network ran on fibre and was kept afloat by community volunteers. When the sale was first proposed at a town council meeting, it was reported that no members of the public spoke out in favour of the sale to Telus. Community members were then told the town needed to sell the service since it couldn’t afford to keep it going, reports The Albertan.
A LinkedIn post from Prairie resident Jerad Kupiec mentions that Telus tried a few times over the years to buy the network, but there isn’t any other reporting I could find to back this up. MobileSyrup has reached out to Telus for clarification.
A separate report from Town and Country Today mentions that the town was saddled with around $18 million worth of debt related to the internet project. In that report, Williams wrote, “The town could not justify the continued and growing cost to maintain and upgrade the network to the standard required to compete in the telecommunications space while providing quality service to O-Net customers.”
Source: The Albertan, Town and Country Today
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