QUEBEC CITY – The governments of Canada and Québec announced $16.5 million in additional funding for fibre deployment by Eeyou Communications Network (ECN) a not-for-profit telecommunications corporation that provides broadband carrier services for the Cree communities of Eeyou Istchee and municipalities of the James Bay region (the company’s region is pictured above).
The project will establish a fibre-optic backbone network that will deliver reliable high-speed Internet access to 16 communities, as well as last mile infrastructure using fiber optic technology to reach non-served residential homes in three of these communities in northern Québec and Mauricie. Also, last mile networks will improve broadband capacity for 6,176 underserved homes in these regions, said the governments in a press conference this morning.
Thanks to the work recently completed in Matagami, Chapais, Lebel-sur-Quévillon and Chibougamau, the project in northern Québec already serves 5,826 new homes and 252 new businesses.
The new funds will be provided as follows:
- $5 million through the Government of Canada’s Connect to Innovate program
- $3.3 million from the Québec branché program
- $6.7 million from the Société du Plan Nord
- $1.2 million from the James Bay regional administration
- 324,494 from Indigenous Services Canada.
Distributel is also a partner of Eeyou and has been since 2018. “One of the parts of our partnership with Eeyou that I am most proud of is that from the beginning, we’ve committed to bringing the benefits of competition to the area, even though we are the only provider. The way we do this is by anchoring the pricing to the prices we see in Montreal, where competitive forces are at play from dozens of companies. A family in Chibougamau should not,” Matt Stein, CEO of Distributel told Cartt.ca.
Construction should start once the winter is over.
