2007/2008 Project Background
On June 6, 2007 the McGuinty Government announced that they were accepting applications for Rural Connections …The Ontario Municipal Rural Broadband Partnership Program. "The expansion of broadband technology in rural Southern Ontario is a priority for our government," said Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. "With this funding, a significant number of rural municipalities will be able to build broadband networks that will improve the lives of their citizens and their local economies." The entire News Release can be accessed on the Ministry of Agricultural Food and Rural Affairs website. Rural residents and businesses of Grey County are currently under served by affordable high speed Internet. Grey County recognizes that broadband access to the Internet is an important issue for our rural residents as it will provide our communities with an opportunity to stimulate citizen engagement, job growth and economic diversification.
On July 3, 2007 Grey County Council pledged its support of $100,000 towards the County’s application for broadband funding from the Province’s Rural Connections program. This map (PDF 493KB) has the results of our gap analysis and an indication of resident interest as of July 31, 2007.
To find out more about the Province’s Rural Connections Program, access the Ministry of Agricultural Food and Rural Affairs website.
Grey County has been working for the past 6 years with our partners (Bruce County, Bluewater District School Board, Grey Bruce Health Services and more) in the Bluewater Connects Consortium to try and bring broadband to our rural residents. We have applied to many Provincial and Federal programs, but have always been turned down for funding. We were confident that we were ready to make a strong application to this program and access some provincial funds to improve the access to broadband in Grey County.
Grey County was chosen as one of the successful applicants in the Rural Connections…The Ontario Municipal Rural Broadband Partnership Program. We were eligible to receive $500,000 in provincial funding to help improve rural residents access to broadband Internet. The Provincial Press Release can be accessed on the Ministry of Agricultural Food and Rural Affairs website.
Through a competitive process, we chose a vendor to provide broadband service in the project area (PDF 233KB) / (JPG 107KB). The vendor chosen was Everus Communications (formerly High Speed FX) of Holstein and Kitchener.
Last Updated on Thursday January 21, 2010