WATERLOO – Five projects announced today by Southwestern Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) will deliver broadband service down 130 kilometres of roads within the region of Waterloo, bringing better connectivity to more than 1,000 homes and businesses.
Including the investments from the companies and SWIFT (whose money comes from the federal, Ontario and local governments), over $11.6 million will be spent on these upgrades, says a SWIFT release.
SWIFT will cover $7.8 million of the costs of the five fibre-to-the-home projects.
The projects are:
- North Frontenac Telephone Corporation has been awarded funding to support two FTTH projects which will collectively service 103 kilometres of rural roadway throughout the Townships of Woolwich, Wellesley and Wilmot to bring high-speed internet to 647 homes and businesses. The projects represent a collective total investment of approximately $9.2 million and service will be available by mid-2022.
- Bell Canada will deploy fibre along more than 14 kms of roads within the Township of North Dumfries to deliver high-speed internet to 250 businesses and homes in the communities of Orr’s Lake and Clyde. Construction of the $1.3 million FTTH solution is expected to be completed by mid-2022.
- EH!tel Networks will receive funding to deploy fibre along 14 kms of road in the Township of Woolwich. The $874,000 fibre-to-the-home network will deliver high-speed connectivity to 92 households and businesses in rural areas surrounding the community of Maryhill by early-2022.
- Rogers Communications will install fibre covering 2.1 kms of roads in the Township of Wilmot. The $300,000 fibre-to-the-home solution will deliver high-speed connectivity to 54 households and businesses in the village of Haysville by early-2022.
“For well over sixty years, NFTC has provided telecommunication services to rural Ontario subscribers. We are very familiar with the challenges of expanding high speed broadband services in lower populated areas,” said Grant Roughley, vice-president of NFTC, in the press release.
SWIFT was approved in 2015 for funding up to $127.4 million under the New Building Canada Fund – Small Communities Fund (NBCF-SCF), a joint federal and provincial infrastructure funding program, and leverages additional funding from municipal partners and private sector investors to bring the total project investment to $209 million to improve access to broadband services across the region.
SWIFT “is now rolling out projects at an accelerated rate with 80% of the newly announced projects in the Waterloo Region slated to begin construction within the next four months,” said Barry Field, the fund’s executive director, in the release.
