The province and Ottawa say the long-awaited broadband expansion for rural Alberta will see “shovels in the ground” when the construction season gets underway this spring.
Ottawa is matching the province’s $150-million pledge to expand broadband in rural, remote and Indigenous communities in Alberta.
The two governments have agreed to jointly “select and move forward projects” from the Universal Broadband Fund, a federal program that supports high-speed internet projects in rural and remote areas across the country.
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Officials from both governments have been reviewing Alberta applications to the fund and “expect to begin announcing specific projects early in the new year,” they said in a news release.
Its says about 201,000 households in the province don’t have access to high-speed internet — about two-thirds of rural residences and 80 per cent of Indigenous households. The official goal is to have 50 megabits per second (Mbps) for downloads and 10 Mbps for uploads
The total cost of expanding rural broadband internet to underserved areas of the province is estimated at $1 billion.
Rural Municipalities of Alberta says high-speed internet “is vital for rural businesses and residents to engage in the digital economy.”
And it has long said relying on the private sector alone won’t work.
“Many rural and remote areas do not have the population density to attract broadband services based on a business case,” the association states on its website. “Therefore, it may be necessary for municipalities to partner with federal and provincial government agencies and industry groups to ensure their residents’ needs are met.”
Rural municipalities also need to be “partners” with the two more senior levels of government in both constructing broadband infrastructure and providing broadband service, it says.
