A new project is bringing high-speed fibre-optic internet — the industry gold standard — to several Winnipeg metro communities in the next 12 months.
At a launch ceremony held Tuesday in Headingley, officials from the Winnipeg Metro Region touted their unique, 50-50 partnership with Manitoba-based internet service providers to better connect rural municipalities around the city.
“It honestly couldn’t be happening at a more pressing time,” WMR executive director Colleen Sklar told the Free Press in an interview, emphasizing how the business partnership allows them “a seat at the table to make decisions that ensure affordable services for Manitobans.”
Sklar said the COVID-19 pandemic has increased the number of people working or studying at home. “And that means more residents are depending on fast, reliable internet — making it quite literally an essential service,” she added.
“But if you go even just a few miles outside the Perimeter Highway,” she said, “you’ll quickly find extremely poor connections and even some people still using dial-up services.”
The project is an equal-ownership consortium formed by WMR’s economic development arm JohnQ Public Inc. with RFNOW Inc., a Manitoba-based internet service provider. That means both corporations have equal stakes over the business model’s profits, since they’re providing the same amount of seed money into the initiative and will also be paying back start-up loans together.
“It’s really the kind of partnership that doesn’t happen often enough, and yet that’s more than necessary if you want to make sure no one is left behind in areas that might’ve been harder to help because they aren’t as densely populated,” said Brad Erb, reeve of Macdonald who’s also taken over chairperson duties at JohnQ.
“This way, we’re not only providing critical access to high-speed internet for residential areas, businesses, farms and attracting more people to our region,” he said, “but we’re actually ensuring that we have the infrastructure, the capacity, and the expertise to do so.”
WMR’s role in the partnership also allows other internet service providers to join the consortium in future phases of the project, said Sklar.
The first six areas that will be getting the new services include the rural municipalities of Portage la Prairie, Headingley, Macdonald, Ritchot, Rockwood, and Stonewall. Other metro areas are expected to join after the pilot year.
Additional funding for the project has come from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, which CIRA vice-president David Fowler says “is exactly the type of project we had in mind when we developed our Community Investment Program.”
“The internet is a connector, literally through its pipes, but, more importantly, by connecting people with opportunities,” said Fowler in a statement. “As part of CIRA’s commitment to build a trusted internet for Canadians, we’re proud to see the Winnipeg Metropolitan Region working to bring broadband to all Manitobans.”
Pricing for the project starts at $139.99 per month and hook-up fees start at $699.99, varying on the location of the home or business and the number of hook-ups that can be generated in an area.
Communities can sign up for the services online or through newsletters sent out by WMR.
Temur Durrani, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press
