By the end of this year, roughly 380 more rural households and businesses in Perth County will have access to reliable, high-speed internet thanks to a federal-provincial investment of nearly $1.6 million in two local broadband-infrastructure projects, Perth-Wellington MPP Matt Rae announced Friday.
At the same time local officials were celebrating the completion of a rural broadband infrastructure project that has provided high-speed internet to more than 110 families, farms and businesses in three rural West Perth communities, another project that will connect even more local families, farms and businesses is just beginning.
Speaking from Bornholm in West Perth Friday afternoon, Perth-Wellington MPP Matt Rae joined local and federal officials to announce a joint federal-provincial investment of an additional roughly $1.2 million — on top of the nearly $440,000 investment that has now connected Bornholm, Slabtown and Willow Grove to high-speed, fiber internet — to support the construction of another broadband network that will connect more than 270 families, farms and businesses in and around the North Perth communities of Britton and Tralee to high-speed internet by this December.
“Projects such as these are part of our commitment to serve rural and underserved communities,” Rae said. “We want to strengthen rural Ontario now and for generations to come. We want people and businesses to prosper and we have a plan to make this happen.
” … As part of our government’s plan to connect every community to high-speed internet by 2025, the governments of Canada and Ontario are investing nearly $1.6 million to bring fast and reliable high-speed internet to more than 380 homes, farms and businesses right here in Perth County.”
The contracts to expand broadband service in Perth County were awarded by Southwest Integrated Fiber Technology Inc. (SWIFT), a not-for-profit corporation founded by local municipalities to address connectivity in Southwestern Ontario. By the end of 2025, a total of more than $255 million in federal, provincial and private investments into broadband-infrastructure projects will help SWIFT and area internet providers bring high-speed internet to more than 64,000 households and businesses in Southwestern Ontario.
“I’ve been fairly relentless during this term as mayor of North Perth on the broadband internet file for our community and our extended Perth County community,” said North Perth Mayor Todd Kasenberg, who also sits as the county’s representative on SWIFT’s board of directors . “While we have been fortunate that we haven’t had to go and fund it entirely on our own … there were points where I felt we were going to have to get the taxpayers … on board.
“This service is an essential utility. (It’s) so important that I have been downright pushy with those who would listen. … On this file, we are setting a long-term stage for regional success and competitiveness. … It excites me to see broadband internet service and broadband fiber brought to all of Southwestern Ontario.”
According to Kasenberg, SWIFT has awarded 97 executed contracts with internet service providers across the region and is projecting a total of 4,255 km of fiber infrastructure to be installed. Of the 64,193 households and businesses that will be connected through these projects, Kasenberg said roughly 874 of those are in Perth County.
So far, three of the five broadband infrastructure projects planned for Perth County have been completed with the fourth – the Britton-Tralee connection – expected to be complete by the end of this year.
“Rural broadband is something that’s so important to small and rural communities,” said Perth-Wellington MP John Nater, who grew up just down the road from Bornholm. “This SWIFT project connecting these communities is so important. Rural broadband … is essential going forward. What we’ve seen over the last two years with the pandemic is how relying we are on reliable and high-speed internet.”
While Rae said the vast majority of Perth County homes and businesses will have access to high-speed internet by the end of 2025, Perth County Warden Jim Aitcheson noted there are still gaps in both internet and cellular coverage in the county that have yet to be addressed through these SWIFT projects.
“Where the problem still is is where Bell is the incumbent (service provider),” Nater said. “That’s the great thing about SWIFT is they bring in the (local communications cooperatives) to build these rural networks.”
Ultimately, Rae and Kasenberg said that remaining gap in high-speed internet coverage in the county and across the province, where larger internet providers like Bell have no plans to build the necessary broadband infrastructure, will be filled with a combination of radio and cellular coverage , low-orbit satellite internet and through the province’s reverse auction, through which internet service providers can bid for government support for projects in those defined geographic areas where coverage is still lacking.