CCB MEDIA FILE PHOTO
Dan Gallagher, former co-founder of Open Cape, shows off the service racks that Open Cape rents out to municipalities and other entities on the Cape. Speed and reliability are two main benefits provided by the Open Cape broadband network, he said.
BARNSTABLE – Cell phone service on the Cape could see an improvement as early as next year.
CapeNet, through its OpenCape fiber-optic network, has an agreement in place with a major mobile service provider to build and connect 59 towers on and off Cape.
OpenCape is a 475-mile fiber-optic network and integrated data center that was built and is operated to advance the economic, social and public safety interests of the communities of southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, the South Coast, and South Shore.
“The real problem with our cellular service is not the lack of access to the cell tower,” said OpenCape consultant Dan Gallagher. “It’s really the ability to carry all of the data that’s going to that cell tower off to the broader internet.”
“The reason that it was inadequate was that it was all basically copper wire, old systems,” Gallagher said. “And it needs to be brought into the 21st generation with a major infusion of fiber optics for each tower.”
Gallagher said that technology is continually going to improve which requires infrastructure upgrades.
“5G service that will be coming a few years down the road really requires that this kind of fiber infrastructure be in every cell tower,” he said.
The number of devices that use the wireless networks are also increasing which adds to the volume of data being transferred.
“More and more people, obviously, are pushing more and more data through these phones and other devices and some people have tablets that are connected via the cell phone infrastructure,” he said. “More and more data is going to go that way and you have to have the abilty to carry all that traffic to the broader internet and this is the solution.”
Gallagher says the towers should be built and connected to the OpenCape backbone by the end of the year, with mobile provider upgrades following sometime next year.
Gallagher would not disclose the name of the wireless service provider involved in the deal.
Hopefully this will remedy the problem some people have with getting a cell phone signal in South Yarmouth.