CALEDONIA, N.S. – With thanks to a provincial government program, EastLink has extended wireless Internet to additional rural areas of its home province of Nova Scotia.
Beginning today, residents and business owners in the community of Caledonia in Nova Scotia’s Queens County will have access to EastLink Rural Wireless Internet under the Government of Nova Scotia’s Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative. EastLink is completing upgrade construction on four towers in the Caledonia area which will deliver Internet service to approximately 1,000 customers.
"We’re excited to launch our fixed wireless Internet service in Caledonia because we know customers in the area have been looking forward to access to high speed Internet," said Dan McKeen, co-CEO of EastLink, in a press release. "This is the first of a series of community-by-community roll-outs that EastLink will be completing between now and December 2009."
EastLink will deliver rural wireless Internet to communities in Lunenburg, Queens, Shelburne, Yarmouth, Digby, Annapolis, Kings, and Hants counties utilizing Motorola Canopy technology. The wireless Internet signal is transmitted to a wireless antenna located outside of customer’s home or business. An ethernet cable then connects the subscriber module to a computer or home network. Rural wireless Internet is available to business and residential customers and is priced at $46.95.
In December, EastLink was awarded the contract to deliver high speed Internet services to eight counties in Nova Scotia. Broadband service is currently unavailable to more than 200,000 Nova Scotians, 93,500 dwellings, 213 schools, and 5,600 businesses – the Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative will close this gap completely.
This broadband service is made available under the provincial government’s Broadband for Rural Nova Scotia initiative. When the initiative is completed at the end of 2009, the entire province will have high-speed Internet access, making Nova Scotia one of the most connected jurisdictions in North America. This will give our schools, businesses and families the opportunity to connect and compete worldwide. Funding partners in Caledonia are the Province of Nova Scotia, the Government of Canada and EastLink.
