With more than 400 kilometres of fibre optic facilities, Lakeland Networks announced this morning that it is rolling out 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) fibre-based internet service to rural homes and businesses in Muskoka.
The municipally-owned company first launched 1 Gbps service to Muskoka businesses in 2014. Now, with the help of the Federal-Provincial Small Communities Fund, it has gone a step further, connecting residential customers in rural Muskoka with some of the highest Internet speeds available anywhere. Lakeland’s gigabit internet service offers unlimited downloading capabilities for less than $100 per month.
The $8.6 million project to extend Lakeland’s existing fibre network was made possible with $5.7 million from the Small Communities Fund. Since being selected for funding a year ago, Lakeland has managed to roll out another 100 kilometers of fibre optic to areas beyond the relatively major communities of Bracebridge and Huntsville, such as Port Sydney and parts of Utterson.
Lakeland Networks provides high-speed fibre internet, VoIP phone service, point-to-point networking for business Internet, and full service IT, local area network and VLAN extension solutions.
Lakeland Networks is a division of Lakeland Energy, a subsidiary of Lakeland Holding which is owned by 6 local municipalities: Bracebridge, Huntsville, Parry Sound, Burk’s Falls, Sundridge and Magnetawan. I became a director of Lakeland Holding in June of this year.
Lakeland has 400 kms of fibre, but thousands more kilometers need to be covered before gigabit service is available to its entire operating area. How will rural broadband expansion be funded?