Internet in several northern locales to get boost: CRTC

Several northern Manitoba communities, including Cranberry Portage, Pukatawagan and Snow Lake, may be about to receive a major internet upgrade.

New funding announced earlier this month through the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) Broadband Fund will mean improvements for several communities in northern Manitoba. All told, the fund will cover costs for up to $20.5 million in rolling out projects throughout Manitoba and other provinces.

The work in Manitoba is split up into three groups - work under Broadband Communications North, work under Bell Canada and work under Bell Mobility. The first group, which will cover 899 households in Barren Lands First Nation, Lac Brochet, Pukatawagan, Shamattawa and Tadoule Lake, will include unlimited data and download and upload speed of 10 and one megabit per second (Mbps). That project is estimated to cost about $5.8 million.

Under Bell Canada, the second part of the project will include 600 households in Cranberry Portage and Snow Lake, bringing unlimited data and internet with download and upload speed ranging from 10 and 10 Mbps to 1,500 and 940 Mbps. Work for this portion of the project is estimated at about $863,000.

The third portion will cover the community of Camperville and about 20 kilometres of roads around the community, including Manitoba Highway 20, with LTE Advanced (LTE+) and up to unlimited data - the cost is ballparked at about $487,000.

“The projects will support the rollout of fourth-generation (also known as LTE or LTE+) mobile wireless access along 425 kilometres of roads and highways in Manitoba, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador,” reads the CRTC announcement.

“They will also support improved Internet and mobile wireless access that will benefit 2,250 households in 35 communities, including five Indigenous communities and one official language minority community, in the three provinces.”

About $9.5 million will be devoted to projects in 26 Saskatchewan communities, covering about 5,000 households, but none of the Saskatchewan work will be conducted in any northern communities.