China Creek Challenges with Power - Baldy Internet History

The current China Creek outage is related to the intermittent power outages up top affecting their installation/back-up power. The plan is to fly in a technician and have service restored by 3:00pm.

I no longer follow any of the Baldy Community Facebook pages. I understand there was a rumour that China Creek had been bought out by a big company. Not true.

Sunshine Cable from Grand Forks put the first internet service in at Baldy. There were three customers - Baldy, Randal, and me. The owner of Sunshine Cable had his own helicopter, and maintenance was not a big deal.

Shaw bought out Sunshine Cable, and were not interested in taking over the wireless internet. The internet  part of the business ended up in the hands of the family owned and operated business China Creek internet in Princeton. The system they inherited was in need of major investment for reliability, including lightning protection.

In some challenging times, a few locals looked after various re-sets to save the company money sending a technician from Princeton. We had a ladder up on McKinney, and if I wasn't around, Kevin Fleming and others would drive up and reset the McKinney part of the system. 

Some members of the China Creek team were ready to pull out of here because of the cost, and a period when the ski hill was not contributing. A group of locals signed an agreement to fund a back-up generator system to keep the service here. That was enough to keep them here, but we did not end up buying a generator.

As China Creek increased their investment here, and the customer base grew, service was more stable.

Matt made fewer stormy trips to the summit, and Matt and Bill helped work out a reliable source of power for the McKinney installation.

With some funding for improving rural service, the band width and capacity was increased. Many in the village are happy with the basic package. I have the next level up. 

China Creek works for many seasonal users, as they allow connect and disconnect in monthly increments at no extra charge.

Some users have switched to Telus now - I have not as the cost is higher, and China Creek provides the service I need.

Some families who are accustomed to multiple devices and streaming over the Christmas holidays have switched to Telus.

Some of us remember when the only phone on the mountain was a radio phone in the lodge, and later an autotel in my cabin. Many years and lots of lobbying to get phones up here.

China Creek's system links through Shaw. Shaw gets a major chunk out of your monthly bill.