Municipality of East Hants
The boundary for the Municipality of East Hants is one of the most interesting in Nova Scotia. It stretches along the North Shore of the Minas Basin from Walton to Maitland, and then follows the twists and turns of the Shubenacadie River south to Milford before crossing to Mount Uniacke in the south west of the county.
East Hants is one of the fastest growing municipalities in Nova Scotia. The 2006 Census showed a population increase of over 14% in just ten years. As a result, the municipality itself has had to grow. More staff meant more offices, often in different locations, so today East Hants must meet the challenge of ensuring that staff working in multiple locations across the county are well connected with each other and with the public.
"Connecting all those offices has definitely been a challenge," says Tom Gignac, IT Manager for the municipality. "We were using satellite, but the latency on the technology wasn't workable for us in terms of instant communication and things like that. So we ended up looking at wireless. It is something that we normally do in our office for laptops, so we decided to do it ourselves." Before making the switch, Gignac and his team prepared a comprehensive proposal that outlined the investment needed and the proposed cost savings. The proposal was accepted by council as a good idea and they got started right away.
Standing in front of East Hants' iconic water tower (visible to travelers on Highway 102), Tom explains how the wireless network was set up:
"From our main office in Milford where our Internet connection comes in, we have a fibre connection to our Elmsdale office where there is twelve staff working. From there, we do a wireless hop to the East Hants Resource Centre, which is where our economic development staff is located. Then we do another hop from there to this tower, and then this tower it does another hop out to the waste management centre."
Showing off one of the wireless panels used in the network, IT team member John Woodman says: "They are really nice to line up, because you can pretty much eyeball them. You are working within a range of a kilometre or two, so you can see what you're doing." That said, the IT team took on a major project. The network covers almost fifty miles of wired and wireless infrastructure, and they saved on labour costs by installing it themselves, finding the time in between their other responsibilities.
Every office now has access to phone, email and the Internet, and to shared information on the municipality server, where ever they work. Savings are made because servers don't have to be replicated on different sites, and because the system is flexible and adaptable.
Michael Brown, the Landfill Site Foreman is happy with the network. "It works well for us because we're so remote. It provides communication with the outside world, and safety is a big factor too."
