The General Manager of Hay Communications worries unnecessary money is being spent on Ontario's high speed internet Access program in Southern Huron and Middlesex Counties.
Angela Lawrence said the province has seen fit to award to other companies funding to install new cable alongside 120 kilometres of existing fibre already installed by Hay communications.
Lawrence said the excess fiber installation is a waste of taxpayer's money.
"Their program is directly overbuilding our existing infrastructure," she said. "So it is rebuilding areas that we have built fiber to the premise either directly funded by our own capital or funded through other government programs such as the Swift program."
Lawrence has spent most of the spring and summer trying to inform the government of its duplication under their $4 billion province-wide Accelerated High Speed Internet Program. In response, the province acknowledged there is some overlap, but that it is moving forward anyway.
“Reviewing and re-scoping projects on an ongoing basis will create instability with provincially funded projects and put at risk the government’s commitment to bring high-speed internet to every region of the province by the end of 2025,” said Ministry of Infrastructure Ontario staff in a recent email to Lawrence.
Despite a deal between Hay and one of the contracted internet providers to avoid reinstalling infrastructure, the province will not redo the funding agreement for the excessive fibre.
"And when we had a workable agreement, and the government refuses to budge, I just felt I had to speak out and see if there wasn't a way to get this addressed," said Lawrence. "I understand the government made their best efforts to come up with a program and mistakes are going to happen, but I like to say when you know better you can do better."
"The issue is from my perspective is government funds that are intended to build where Ontarians do not have access to any suitable internet and they're being used overbuild our existing infrastructure," she added.
Lawrence said it costs Hay Communications $10,000 per kilometre to install fibre internet cables underground, and between $1,000 and $2,000 to connect each individual customer.
"Customers that we built to in the last few years, they're now seeing their roads and their, you know, the front sections of their lawns torn up again. Some of them even think it is us doing it and you know, we're reassuring them that we are not," concluded Lawrence. "And there's cost to us as a company. We have that infrastructure in the ground, we have to locate it whenever someone else is building in the area. Inevitably, when you're doing construction, you accidentally cut stuff so we have to go back and repair that."
