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More high-speed internet connections coming to the County

Bay of Quinte MPP Todd Smith announced this morning, more high-speed internet access agreements for unserved and underserved homes and businesses in Prince Edward County, Belleville and Quinte West, marking another milestone in the government’s plan to help connect every corner of the province by 2025.

The government estimates there are as many as 12,040 underserved homes and businesses in these municipalities. Following a two-stage competitive process, Rogers Communications has signed an agreement with the province to bring high-speed wired internet access to homes and businesses in all three local municipalities; Cogeco Connexion has signed an agreement for Quinte West, and Bell Canada has signed an agreement for Belleville. Specific locations were not announced.

Prince Edward County Mayor Steve Ferguson said he is excited to see continued progress.

“Members of our community increasingly rely on the internet to work, learn, run their businesses, and connect with the broader world. We commend the Ontario government’s efforts to enhance this critical infrastructure and the investments that have been made to expand access, especially to those living and working in rural communities.”

In total, the province has signed agreements with eight internet service providers to bring access to up to 266,000 unserved and underserved homes and businesses in as many as 339 municipalities across the province.

“We know that residents and business operators here in Bay of Quinte are increasingly dependent on online connectivity and, for many, it has been challenging to find reliable service,” said Smith.

The announcement is part of Ontario’s investment of nearly $4 billion to bring access to reliable, high-speed internet across the province.

 

 

Filed Under: Local News

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  1. David Thomas says:

    SM, you make some good points but the internet is more akin to having a telephone, which most rural residents have. You left that one out. Folks aren’t asking for free internet. Most will happily pay quite a bit of money to have decent internet service. Given the importance of the internet in most people’s lives, high speed internet should be available to all.

  2. SM says:

    If one chooses to live in a rural area, one does not expect to have municipal water and sewer services. One does not expect to have cable television. One does not expect transit, street lighting and in many cases garbage collection. One cannot even expect to have a paved road. Why should one expect to have high speed internet?
    Ontario has decided that everyone in the province should have access to high speed internet. If there was an economic case to be made for it, companies like Bell, Rogers, Shaw, Cogeco and others would be out there installing cable / fibre and signing people up. They aren’t doing that because the return on investment is not there.
    4 Billion dollars of tax revenue is being provided to get there companies to install those ‘cables’. There will be ongoing expenses to maintain that system. This investment will not lower the cost of internet.

  3. Dennis Fox says:

    Dave – you made excellent points! What I wonder about is the cost to the taxpayers – government gives grants to companies to build more and better connections and they in turn charge the customers more for the service – something that we have already paid for!?? Frankly, until the internet can be deemed to be truly secure and fast – I will keep my service very basic – and cheap.

  4. B Wilder says:

    Rogers 150 Mbps costs $110.00 per month. 500 Mbps is $115.00 and Gigabit is $125.00. With Bell it is $105.00, $115.00 and $125.00. Cogeco charges $105.00 for 180 Mbps. The higher speeds are all on fibre connections.
    Doesn’t look like Mr Thomas will save any money.

  5. David Thomas says:

    These fixed connections may be slightly cheaper than Xplornet but don’t expect a lot savings, especially if you want enough bandwidth to stream tv and music. I am fortunate to have an extremely fast Xplornet connection but I am in a pretty sparsely populated part of the county and have direct line of sight to a tower three kilometres away. I pay around $110 per month though, which is pretty dear.

    In this day and age, it is inexcusable that affordable high-speed internet remains out of reach for many rural Canadians, including some in Prince Edward County.

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