5G rollout rolls as dividend, charitable help evident

Tbaytel has provided a fixed dividend of $18 million for the City of Thunder Bay after earning more than $219 million in revenue through 2023. The dividend reduces local property tax bills by about 8.24 per cent. This week, Tbaytel released The Future is Now: 2023 Report to the Community, highlighting the service provider's annual key accomplishments while summarizing its financial information and strategic direction. Since 2004, Tbaytel has grown from providing three services to five while continuing to roll out its 5G mobility network across all of Northwestern Ontario. Over 20 years, the company has returned $375.9 million in dividends to the city and last year alone, made a direct economic impact of $146 million in northern Ontario. Dan Topatigh, the Tbaytel president and chief executive officer, said the company attributes the success to acquisitions, investments and alliances with national partners. "We certainly have an appreciation that the networks we've built have also built a loyal customer base that has grown every year," he said. Topatigh said when Tbaytel was first established as a municipal services board, it provided around $16 million in dividends to the community. "The way we structure the dividend, we've also contributed about $32 million back to the city through what we call special dividends or performance dividends over that period of time," he said. "Since the inception of Tbaytel, that has an impact of about 80 per cent on the municipal mill rate." Last year, the Tbaytel for Good program contributed close to $532,000 to organizations and events across northern Ontario. Designed to support not-for-profit organizations, these financial contributions and employee volunteer hours supported Our Kids Count, the United Way and the Wake the Giant festival. Topatigh called the charity work "the fabric of who we are." The funding comes through Tbaytel's operations and is earmarked as a specific percentage on an annual basis to ensure that they can give back to the community. This year, Tbaytel will continue to expand the 5G mobility network with a focus on smaller communities in the Thunder Bay region to complete its fibre build. "We're most proud of being 99.9 per cent complete for (installing) homes and businesses with fibre," he said. Ahead, Topatigh says that 5G will need to be in place because the expectation for more robust networks and data consumption grows every year. "We're probably averaging about 25 per cent growth in data consumption on our network (annually) so we have to make sure that those networks can handle that going forward," he said. Tbaytel expanded 5G to Dryden and Kenora and welcomed the community of Terrace Bay to areas they service with fibre included in 20 areas in the region. Tbaytel added 2,660 addresses to its fibre footprint which includes the federally-funded Lakehead Regional Municipal Coalition project, which will see expansion into the Township of Conmee, Township of Gillies, Township of O'Connor, Municipality of Neebing, Municipality of Oliver Paipoonge, and the Municipality of Shuniah by 2025.

Sandi Krasowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Chronicle-Journal