QUEBEC CITY — The federal and Quebec governments have jointly awarded more funding through the Canada-Quebec Operation High Speed program to Videotron and Cogeco to bring high-speed Internet access to several rural communities throughout Quebec.
Announced last week, Videotron is receiving a combined amount of $34 million from the two levels of government to support its deployment of high-speed Internet services to 5,300 households in the Bas-Saint-Laurent region by September 2022.
With an expected total cost of $39.64 million, the Videotron project will target 44 communities in the Les Basques regional county municipality (RCM), Kamouraska RCM, Rivière-du-Loup RCM and Témiscouata RCM. (The full list of communities is included in the press release here.)
Announced today, Cogeco will receive $5.6 million in joint Canada-Quebec funding to bring high-speed Internet access to 680 households in the Fjord-du-Saguenay RCM by September 2022. The municipalities covered by the project, which has an estimated total cost of $6.1 million, include L’Anse-Saint-Jean, Petit-Saguenay, Rivière-Éternitéand Saint-Félix-d’Otis, as well as the city of Saguenay. (For more, please click here.)
This funding is on top of the money already allocated to the two ISPs, among others, for delivering broadband access to rural communities through the Canada-Quebec Operation High Speed initiative, which received half of its funding from the federal government’s Universal Broadband Fund (UBF). As we wrote last week, the vast amount of UBF funding doled out so far has gone to Canada’s largest ISPs.
