Warden Jim Ginn says a recent announcement from Bell Canada is good news for rural communities in Huron County.
Bell announced this week their intention to accelerate their rural Internet roll-out in response to COVID-19 and Ginn says that will boost many homes from a current speed of 8 to 12 megabytes up to 25 which will mean a significant improvement over what they currently have.
Ginn adds he recently moved up to 25 megabytes and that allows him to participate in Zoom meetings.
“So I can participate in Zoom meetings and those types of things, which our councils and committees are using now instead of live meetings. So the fact that this is going to more people, it's certainly a benefit to them for sure.”
Ginn says politicians aside and meetings aside, a lot of people depend on the internet to stay in touch with family members, especially given the situation we are all in with COVID-19.
“But there's lots of people that just want to be in touch with family members electronically, you know if you have a senior in a long term care home or kids away or grand kids at a distance, people want to do those electronic videos, so i think everyone would really appreciate those types of speed.”
Ginn adds taking internet speed up to 25 megabytes won't impact the SWIFT program aimed at improving internet to all of Southwestern Ontario because the SWIFT target is 50 megabytes eventually, so at 25 megabytes, most of Huron County would still be considered under-serviced.
