Of towers and billing powers
Q: I live near the Ridgemount Road overpass of the QE heading towards Fort Erie. Recently, in one day, a tall structure popped up on the east side of the highway. It is a metal framework with about 12 levels (with ladders in between). Can you please find out what it is? (If it is some type of communications tower, I hope it improves my internet speed!)
A: You’re on the right track. Richard Brady, Fort Erie’s director of planning and development services, said the structure is a telecommunications tower and should help with cell phone coverage when it’s complete.
It’s believed to be a private tower for a cell provider.
Q: I have noticed for many years now that the Horizon/ Alectra billing period each month is so different, even from year to year, it seems to be a deliberate attempt to obfuscate.
It is virtually impossible to compare a period from one year to the previous year, or the next year, and so on in order to ascertain how effective one is at reducing energy utilization. Or perhaps Horizon (and other hydro sellers) use this moving target to hide the ever incessant spate of increases. For example the past 16 billing periods my company has received span the following numbers of days: 29, 33, 29, 28, 29, 32, 29, 28, 38, 25, 33, 30, 28, 34, 30, 33. There seems to be no rhyme or reason.
A: There is method to the billing madness.
We turned to John Friesen, spokesman for Alectra Utilities, for an explanation.
Friesen said in an email it’s not an attempt to hide rate increases – those rates are determined by the regulator, Ontario Energy Board, and are publicly available and posted on the OEB website as well as Alectra’s.
He wrote that Alectra Utilities billing cycles do occasionally fluctuate from month to month. The fluctuation is due to the varied number of days each month and is occasionally impacted by statutory holidays.
Bills are not sent on the first day of every month to ensure that the work required to read meters, validate meter reads and perform billing and mailing activities is equalized throughout the number of business days available to staff.
The company also tries to equalize the number of bills sent out daily to better control the volume of customer queries received in the call centre.
In other words, if everyone got their bill on the first of the month, the calls would come all at once.
“It is important to us that we can be responsive and answer each call quickly to best serve our customers,” Friesen wrote.
Despite the variable bill periods, Friesen said there are a number of ways that customers can validate their bills and monitor consumption.
For instance, divide your total consumption by the number of days in the billing period to obtain a daily average. He said monitoring your daily average can assist in better understanding the impact of heating and cooling as well as conservation efforts.
Customers are also encouraged to use the online My Account portal at www.horizonutilities.com that has a number of tools to help them understand their bill, energy costs, and consumption.