Questions surround status of $400 million Flashfibr project

By Dave Flaherty/The Oshawa Express

The progress of a $400 million fibre optic network project seems to have stalled completely.

It’s been 18 months since Flashfibr announced it would be investing that figure to improve high-speed internet in Oshawa.

“Durham deserves better data,” Howard Morton, the company’s CEO said in May 2017. “This is really about providing the infrastructure that helps create growth and helps encourage other companies to come to the region.”

According to Morton, the company plans to install more than 1,000 kilometres of fibre network. The network will provide speeds starting at 300 megabits a second, Morton stated at the time of the announcement.

Initial plans indicated that work would start in the summer of 2017, with services available to businesses and institutions by the end of June and residential services a few months later.

But the end of the year came and went, with few updates on the project.

In December, Rania Walker, a spokesperson for the company, told The Oshawa Express the company “encountered some unexpected delays, but has moved forward with continued momentum, upgrading our core technology to honour our commitment to provide the most advanced internet services, with a revised launch target of spring 2018.”

In April of this year, Walker said Flashfibr expected “to start signing up customers this summer.”

“Over the last year, they have met with nearly a thousand residents and businesses and are committed to bringing Canada’s best internet solutions to Durham Region,” Walker said. “They have developed a comprehensive range of TV, Phone and internet applications that will be running on fibre-optic speeds which will range from 300 Mbps to 10 Gbps.”

However, when The Express reached out to Walker in October for an update, she said she was no longer working with the company.

Multiple messages left to the company have not been returned as of press time.

When asked about the project recently, Oshawa Mayor John Henry said he had not heard any new information.

Flashfibr stated it would work with the Oshawa Power and Utilities Corporation (OPUC) to lay their cable.

OPUC president and CEO Ivano Labricciosa says while they were excited about the project, there was little follow up after initial discussions.

“We haven’t done any work for them,” he says.

Core21, a co-working office space located in downtown Oshawa was pegged to be Flashfibr’s first customer.

However, Core21 manager Amy Gazdik says this never “came to fruition.”

“We’re not moving forward with them. We’ve done our own upgrade. It just kind of got pushed off and pushed off,” she says.

Gazdik says the last communication she had with Flashfibr was about a year ago.

Multiple messages left to the company have not been returned as of press time.

The last tweet from Flashfibr came on March 17, 2018 wishing followers a happy St. Patrick’s Day, while the last post on Facebook was July 3, 2018.