Good news for rural Ontario.
At the most recent Western Ontario Wardens’ Caucus meeting a series of recommendations were approved to support rural broadband in Southwestern Ontario.
The target of the government of Canada is 95 percent of homes and businesses will have access to internet speeds of at least 50/10 MBPS (megabits per second) by 2026.
This is expected to cost roughly $1 billion.
The WOWC is requesting $254 million in direct funding from the Government of Canada, and another $221 million from the Province to support the critical broadband infrastructure in the region.
The WOWC is also requesting 10% of funds from the CRTC Broadband Fund and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) Universal Broadband Fund to go directly to Southwestern Ontario.
Those funds combined with $174 million from public private partnerships the WOWC hopes to address the infrastructure deficit and achieve the goal of 95 percent service to the population by 2025.
