A largely rural area of Ontario that includes Grey-Bruce is now a “major step” closer to having more of its homes and businesses connected to high-speed broadband internet as part of the SouthWestern Integrated Fibre Technology network.
Provincial officials have announced that request-for-proposals for up to $36.8 million in broadband infrastructure have been issued in Bruce, Grey and Huron counties.
“What this means is that we are going to get a SWIFT project in Grey-Bruce. We’re going to have projects on the move,” Grey County Deputy-warden Selwyn Hicks, the county’s representative on the SWIFT board, said Monday in an interview.
“As I’ve been saying all along, though, SWIFT is not going to be the silver bullet. SWIFT is going to address some pockets and they are pockets that are difficult to reach, so it’s going to be part of the solution, but it’s by no means going to be the solution.”
The RFPs are set to close July 10 for Grey County and Aug. 21 for Bruce. Once an RFP closes, contracts for the work will be awarded and service provider agreements will be put in place.
“We’re now going to see actual projects that are going to be proposed and we will see machines digging and placing fibre and that’s a good thing. It’s much needed,” Hicks said.
The non-profit, municipally-led SWIFT project is overseeing a $209-million broadband expansion that will connect about 22 per cent of under-served premises in southwestern Ontario over the next three years.
The federal and provincial governments and private-sector service providers have each committed $63.7 million to the project, while municipalities are planning to invest $17.6 million.
SWIFT subsidizes the construction of open-access high-speed networks to encourage service providers to expand broadband infrastructure in eligible areas, which include those that don’t have the preferred 50/10 (50 megabytes per second download bandwidth, 10 mbps upload bandwidth) internet service and where the market isn’t sufficient for internet service providers to invest.
Prequalified service providers can respond to RFPs with network designs and proposals to address broadband service gaps in eligible funding areas.
SWIFT began issuing RFPs in August 2019.
On Friday, Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound Progressive Conservative MPP Bill Walker and Huron-Bruce PC MPP Lisa Thompson announced a “major step in the expanding of broadband internet in Bruce, Grey and Huron counties” with the latest RFP from SWIFT.
“This is terrific news for residents in the rural areas of Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound. Through this investment, we can continue to take steps to bridge the digital divide and improve quality of life for our local residents,” Walker said in a statement.
The province’s announcement comes about three weeks after Grey County council approved a motion to issue a “call to action” to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his government to “champion the implementation of broadband” in the unserviced and under-served parts of Grey County.
The motion notes that Grey County families and businesses need reliable, affordable broadband “now more than ever in our increasingly electronic world” to conduct business and stay connected both locally and beyond.
Grey County Warden Paul McQueen said the province’s announcement is “very welcome news” and is especially timely given the COVID-19 pandemic, which has highlighted just how important it is for families, businesses and others to be connected to reliable and affordable high-speed internet.
“The ability to connect is even more important now than probably ever – not just for your younger cohorts, but for your older generation as well,” he said in an interview.
McQueen said he’s heard about how important internet connectivity has been during the pandemic for many local seniors as it’s allowed them to stay in contact with their children and grandchildren while in isolation.
“It’s very good for our area and very important. We could always get more and we always will ask for more, but everything is a step approach and there is only so much money in the pot,” he said.
SWIFT officials say there are nearly 230,000 under-served premises in southwestern Ontario and the project intends to connect 50,000 of those homes and businesses with current funding.
But it would cost about $2.7 billion to “fiberize every under-served road” in the southwestern Ontario region, a SWIFT spokesperson has told The Sun Times. That amount could be reduced by using wireless broadband in certain areas.
Many parts of Grey-Bruce are not eligible for SWIFT funding, including Owen Sound, Hanover, the town of Meaford and large sections of southeastern Grey and southwestern Bruce.
“Any carrier, regardless of who they are, if they can meet that minimum requirement of 50 down and 10 up, we’re banned from that territory. So, in Grey County, there has been some wireless providers that say, we’re claiming this territory because we have the ability to deliver 50 down and 10 up, regardless of the price,” Hicks said.
“I would love to see fibre everywhere so that it’s robust and reliable, but the province has made it very clear that if they can deliver anything at all, regardless of the price, we have to stay away from that territory.”
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