Rural Ontario’s third wave of high-speed broadband Internet projects was approved today. In total, 14 additional municipalities got the go-ahead as part of the province’s Rural Connections Broadband Program.
Robert Garner, Hawk Hill Farm
Our farm is located in Eastern Ontario almost halfway between Ottawa and Montréal, and halfway between the Ottawa River and the St. Lawrence River.
Laurie Maus, Hawk Hill Farm
We raise purebred Canadian horses. We have pure-bred North country Cheviot sheep and purebred Tunis, as well as we’re starting a beef cow/calf operation.
Laurie Maus
Marketing horses is all about movement. And you cannot show them what a horse will do with still pictures. So they wanted videos. In the past we were restricted to sending out VHS tapes. We couldn't put anything on the Internet. But they wanted to have videos of the horses moving, so now we can e-mail video clips
Robert Garner
Dial-up is just too slow to be able to do any of this type of thing.
Robert Garner
Things that would take us five and six hours we can now do in a matter of minutes. And we don't have to sit and monitor the computer like we did. With dial-up, you end up having to be there in front of the computer because it always kicks out on you.
Laurie Maus
Our clients are for the most part from the city --
Laurie Maus
If our clients and our competitors are on high-speed, we need to be on high-speed or we don't have the competitive advantage.
Leona Dombrowsky, Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
This is another example of our government turning miles into milliseconds, and we're delighted that this week – today actually – we are going to be announcing 14 partnerships across the province of Ontario to help fill some of the gaps that have existed and to bring broadband services to rural communities.
Leona Dombrowsky
Since we started this program, 47 projects have been announced. Many of the projects are already up and running.
Robert Garner
It's certainly been a boon for this community. The community itself has a large number of small businesses, not only farm businesses but other types of small business, which was very difficult before the tower was installed and before broadband came into the area.
Leona Dombrowsky
This program is making very positive differences to rural businesses, schools and residents. So I want to thank everyone who is working with us on rural broadband.