Municipal Matters: Closing the Digital Divide

MCSnet continues to bridge the digital divide in rural Alberta with our innovative 60 GHz GigAir technology. Our latest GigAir communities include Legal, Wasketneau, Radway, and Warspite.

One of the key benefits of this technology is its high capacity and relatively low cost to deploy and maintain, compared to other broadband solutions such as fiber optic networks.

Additionally, GigAir is also very scalable and can easily be expanded to accommodate the growing demand for internet access rural communities. Whether it be a new subdivision or an industrial park, our GigAir technology provides for your community today and into the future without the disruption of critical infrastructure or the expense compared to a Fiber-to-the-Premise option. You can learn more at this YouTube video we created or visit our GigAir page.

Contact us today to see how you can partner with MCSnet to bring this affordable broadband solution to your community: 1 866 390 3928 ext. 280 or kevin.bernhardt@corp.mcsnet.ca

Winter Construction

MCSnet is battling the winter elements to continue construction of transit fiber to our towers and to several communities throughout our service area. Ongoing construction is almost complete or active in Vermilion River County, the MD of Wainwright, Beaver County, Lamont County and the County of Two Hills.

Building fiber to our towers within these municipalities substantially increases the bandwidth for our customers and gives us the opportunity to deploy wireless fiber speeds to rural customers that reside in suitable GigAir communities.

Alberta Broadband Fund

The Alberta Broadband Fund is now accepting applications under intake 1 of the first stream of funds in its efforts to close the digital divide.

Stream 1 will focus on closing community connectivity gaps and will have two intakes:

• The Service Availability Challenges intake will support communities where delivered internet speeds are below the federal target of 50 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up, despite federally mapped service availability claims indicating target speeds are available.

APPLICATION IS OPEN UNTIL MARCH 20/2023

• The community/Internet Service Provider (ISP) Applications intake will fund net-new applications in underserved communities that did not apply or were not eligible for the UBF.

NOT YET OPEN FOR APPLICATION

Stream 2 will provide underserved households with a one-time grant to offset the costs of adopting high-speed internet. This will support the most remote and hardest to connect.

NOT YET OPEN FOR APPLICATION

Learn more about Alberta’s Broadband Strategy here.