Shelburne County fire departments call for permanent fix to phone system disruptions

Two Shelburne County fire departments are concerned that unreliable telephone service in their areas could fail them at the worst possible time.

The departments, which serve rural communities near Shelburne, N.S., want Bell Canada to upgrade aging copper lines that they say have been the source of troublesome service interruptions for their phone and paging systems.

"It's like a matter of life and death. Minutes can make the difference," said Sheree Smith, a member of the Harbour Fire Department in North East Harbour. 

Smith said their landline stopped working for two months in the spring, leaving them without working phones and rendering useless the pagers that are paramount for departments to respond to emergencies in a timely manner.

"Two months without a pager system, that's scary. Very, very scary," said Smith, who is a medical first responder.

When 911 calls are received by a regional dispatch centre, the dispatcher calls the fire hall closest to the emergency, and the message and location of the emergency is relayed to all firefighters in the department by way of their pagers.

If the landline isn't working, the dispatcher has to contact all department members by cellphone. But that option has also been problematic.

"As far as texts, we can use that as a secondary measure, but we're in an area where cellphone reception is extremely poor," said Danny Holmes, fire chief of the Middle and Upper Ohio Fire Department.

Bell Canada technicians have made temporary fixes when service has been interrupted, but Smith wants the telecommunications company to replace their copper lines with fibre optic cables to address the problem permanently. 

"We have to be switched and they're not willing to do that. So, now we're here with another Band-Aid on these rotten copper lines, which their own employees tell us is the problem," said Smith. 

Most Canadian households use fibre optic internet cables rather than underground copper lines that were installed decades ago. Bell is in the process of switching over those residential customers who remain connected to copper-wired landlines and will eventually do the same for businesses.

Bell classifies these fire departments as small businesses.

"Bell is focusing on migrating residential services off the copper network, and business will follow as part of a multi-year phased copper decommissioning effort across the country," a company spokesperson said in a statement to CBC News.

At least two Shelburne County departments, including the Harbour Fire Department, have asked municipal council to work with Bell to get their copper lines replaced.

"The Municipality sent an advocacy letter to Bell on November 15th and have received a response to advise that Bell is looking into the situation," said Warren MacLeod, chief administrative officer of the Municipality of the District of Shelburne, in a statement responding to CBC's request for comment.

"In an emergency, every moment counts, timely and clear communication can mean the difference between life and death, or the preservation of valuable property as we learned during the wildfires in 2023."

But Holmes and Smith are doubtful that Bell is prioritizing a fix of the problem. 

"They are reluctant to recognize our situation as an emergency situation," Holmes said. 

"There are times when it's as much as three days before they send a technician out to look at the problem, even though … we definitely need these up and running within hours, not days." 

Smith said her department is dealing with the problem as best they can. 

"We go day by day."