The pre-qualification process has begun for the Southwest Integrated Fibre Technology (SWIFT) project.
Executive Director Geoff Hogan says a request for pre-qualification (RFPQ) asks providers to outline the location of all of their fibre optic infrastructure.
"The reason that we want to collect the data from the providers is that we don't want to have fibre built where there is already existing fibre," says Hogan. "We want to add to the fibre foot print in the region, not duplicate it."
He says once the information is received, it will be analyzed and used to develop a construction plan for their business case -- which he hopes will be finalized by this October.
"When our business case is finalized, it gets a third review by the province, and then we issue RFP's (Request for Proposals) in the beginning of November, to actually engage the private sector to build the network."
A total of $288-million, from all three levels of government and the private sector, has been secured by SWIFT for the first phase of the project.
