“Our goal is to put together but a billion-dollar package between us, the feds, and private-sector telecommunications companies. This summer the province committed $150 million to help fix the problem, and Premier Jason Kenney said he hopes the money will inspire the federal government and private sector to bring the total investment up to $1 billion. Seniors in the community also struggled, said Henry, because they can’t navigate some of the additional technology required to boost services.Īccess to Internet services has been a problem in rural Alberta for years. Students who felt isolated and sought mental-health services online would see the service drop in middle of a session, which made them feel more alone, said Mayor Luci Henry. Since students would lose Internet connection if they turned their video on, some local university students attending courses online had to drop out of their classes for the semester, because several courses required video attendance, Penney said. Service was so bad some students couldn’t go to virtual class with their video on, so teachers couldn’t tell who was attending classes, Penney said. “COVID-19 definitely has made it more noticeable to our communities, with people having to work from home, with the kids having to do schooling from home,” said Coun. In the community of Clive, a village 15 minutes east of Lacombe, Internet service is “very terrible.” Residents don’t have access to high-quality Internet at all, say local councillors. The community partnered with a supplier: the town owns 70 per cent and the supplier owns 30 per cent. So we now have a gigabyte of service to every house, every business, too,” said Peterson, who was the former mayor of Hythe. “It was so bad that our village could not sometimes do online banking,” said Peterson.īut Hythe, which has now dissolved into the surrounding County of Grande Prairie, decided to build its own infrastructure.
Once more members of the community hop online, the Internet slows to a halt for everyone. Internet providers say their service is adequate, but Peterson said that is only if a few people are using it. Brian Peterson said the Internet in the community is not consistent.
The digital divide is increasingly limiting access to economic, health, social, and education opportunities in Alberta, said the resolution. On Thursday, Alberta Municipalities, formerly known as the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, voted to advocate for a provincial broadband strategy, which will need measurable goals, concrete actions, and a dedicated budget that recognizes broadband as an essential utility.
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“They didn’t have the connectivity at home to make it happen,” Potter said.Īcross rural Alberta, Internet service is a perennial problem, with slow upload and download speeds or residents who don’t have access to a service at all.
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