Rural Economic Development Minister Bernadette Jordan, announced combined funding for the Eastern Ontario Regional Network’s mobile broadband project.
The project aims to bring improved cellular broadband and connectivity to eastern Ontario residents, by building 317 new telecommunications towers and 32 local internet access points.
It will also identify capacity gaps that occur due to heavy user traffic, introduce new equipment to decrease network overloads, and improve service quality in rural communities.
Forty percent of rural Eastern Ontario currently does not have access to high-definition services that would allow users to stream video in HD.
“This project will allow Eastern Ontario rural municipalities to be better connected and ensure that residents have improved access to online services and tools whether at home or on the road,” said Jordan in a press release.
The project will improve mobile coverage for more than 1.1 million Canadians. It also has the potential to create more than 3,000 jobs.
The government of Canada is contributing up to $71 million CAD under the Rural and Northern Infrastructure Steam of the Investing in Canada plan.
Additionally, the Government of Ontario will also provide $71 million CAD in funding, along with $10 million CAD from the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus.
Jordan recently unveiled the Connectivity Strategy for Canada, which looks at driving economic growth through rural infrastructure. It also aims to get 100 percent of Canadians connected to 50Mbps download speeds/10Mbps upload target speeds by 2030.
Source: Infrastructure Canada, Eastern Ontario Regional Network
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