Hardest access to the Internet: in McDonald’s parking lot for quality WiFi

Lanadier residents must go to large restaurant chain parking lots to use quality Wi-Fi because they do not have high-speed internet at home.

Also read: The Internet is still not available in the teleworking age

“I need to go to a free town and park as close as possible to McDonald’s or Tim Hortons to access their free internet,” explained Guilhoum Lefebvre, a resident of Saint-Calixte.

He occasionally goes there to download files, but most of all he attends his medical appointments via videoconference once a month – in Pandemic Obliges – Saint-Linn – Laurentides‌, especially in his car in the parking lots. His medical appointments were made in person before.

“Nightmare”

“The Internet, I never believed that access to us would turn out to be a nightmare!”

Saint-Calixte is one of the best-functioning cities in MRC de Montcom – including Saint-Julienne, Saint-Liguri and Saint-Esprit – with approximately 5,600 addresses to connect to the Internet. High speed.

It represents a quarter of the approximately 21,600 households in this MRC according to the 2016 census.

Cellular networks are also very demanding. “I had to call 911 earlier and the line was still cut,” Mr Lefebvre said.

At home, he only gets speeds of 0.2 to 0.8 Mbit / s with his modem. Speeds of 1 to 3 Mbps are considered slow. He had trouble opening the photos.

Neighboring groups at Tim

Julie Lamourex, a press relations officer who works from her home in Saint-Calixte, explains that these parking lots also belong to “groups” of unplugged people who cannot get to their Montreal campus due to Kovid-19. , For example.

“My work videoconferences are in Tim Hortons’ parking lot in Saint-Lin, just like my neighbors, ”she says. We pass each other in the parking lot, which is not even a joke. ”

Mark-Andre Pouliat, from Saint-Julien, denies for his part that his 5-year-old son did not participate in zoom activities with his mentor.

“I have satellite internet access, but the lack of one in between, I don’t know what the worst is,” he said. If it’s wet, the reception cuts, if it’s snowing, the reception cuts, and if the weather is not good somewhere in Quebec, the quality is jerky. “

Too many barriers to connection

Serving this territory does not seem to benefit internet providers, explained Pierre La Salle, who was prefect for MRC de Montcom before announcing his resignation in December.

This prompted MRC to develop Montcom Telecom and Optical Fibers (MTFO) to gradually provide high-speed Internet services to the population. All thanks to government funding.

Among the obstacles encountered in management to connect areas, access to bell poles to install optical fiber sometimes complicates matters.

“When a post isn’t strong enough, they don’t want us to change ourselves, sometimes it takes 18 months,” he says. 80 If there are two posts in a row [poteaux] And we do not have permission, how can you send the signal in the end? ”

“We worked with the MRC to provide access to the Bell Pillars,” said Bell spokeswoman Carolyn Audette. All permit applications to access our infrastructure have been processed within the time frame prescribed by the CRTC, ”she assured us.

Let’s speed talk

Optical fiber

The cable, made of silicon, allows data to be transmitted at very high speeds (up to several Gbit / s), unlike copper cable.

Megabit per second (Mbit / s)

Trans is a unit of measurement for data transfer speed over the Internet.

1 to 3 Mbit / s

Slow is considered slow, comparable to what we had in the early 2000s.

5 Mbit / s

This is the minimum. You can do video conferencing, but hiccups are possible. Forget the beautiful HD images on Netflix. For a family with multiple customers at the same time, this is not recommended.

15 Mbit / s

Allows you to watch movies in Films Streaming With standard video quality. However, keep in mind the total number of customers in the home.

50 Mbit / s

C The minimum connection speed target for all Canadians set by CRTC. In uploading, the target is at least 10 Mbps.