Two individuals involved in the development and installation of the Morenet Internet Service have come forward after Morden Council made the announcement the service would be discontinuing October 30th. Sergi Polishchuck of Infotec Manitoba and Dave Haines, who use to work with the city, were contracted during the infancy of the program.

Haines says they believe the service can meet the Internet needs of residents, and approached Council with a proposal to buy and privatize Morenet and its assets.

Although the initial negotiations reached an impasse, Haines says today they affirmed they would accept the city's terms entirely.

"We know Morenet, in whatever form it would take in a private model, would be able to compete very handily with any other service out there. We're confident we can deliver this service to the community. That's why we approached Council to look at the option of privatizing."

Before the original negotiation's closing date of September 30th, Haines says they had communicated they were prepared to accept the city's terms for sale.

He says the reason they held today's news conference was concerned residents had approached them, hoping to learn more about the future of the service.

"Some community members were here this morning speaking about what Morenet has done for their businesses or their personal lives. There are over 500 customers relying on Morenet right now. They're looking at the prospect of going back to where we were two/three years ago, which isn't appealing to them."

Read More: Morenet Internet Service To Cease Operations October 30th

The decision to end Morenet was from Council's understanding of what was necessary to complete and deliver the service. A new analysis brought up viability issues around technology, back-haul issues and cost, with the escalation in value caused by increasing the bandwidth of the system. The current system was only able to support 1GB of bandwidth across all Morenet users.

However, Haines believes these aren't hurdles, and the service could be provided affordably and competitively.

"We have looked at the businesses plan for this very closely. We wouldn't be here today if we believed we couldn't deliver a service that was affordable and competitive."

In response to Polishchuck and Haines coming forward, City of Morden Spokesperson Viktor Karklins, says the city of Morden does not negotiate the sale of city assets in public or through the Media, adding this approach is inappropriate and contributes to the spread of misinformation.