<\/p>\n
Fast reliable internet is more important<\/h2>\n
\u201cFast reliable internet is more important than ever. In fact we couldn\u2019t be here today without it,\u201d said\u00a0Lisa Beare<\/a>, BC\u2019s Minister of Citizens\u2019 Services. \u201cToday I can tell you that the Connecting British Columbia program is approving more than $10.5 million in grants to improve internet speeds on BC\u2019s coasts.\u00a0 This means that people in places like Zeballos and Quadra Island and Bella Coola will soon see improved internet speed and reliability. People benefitting from these projects are members of several indigenous projects as well: the\u00a0Haida<\/a>, the\u00a0Nuxalk<\/a>,\u00a0Ehattesaht<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Klahoose Nation<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Sites on Cortes and Quadra Islands \u2013 adapted from Google Maps by Roy L Hales<\/p><\/div>\n More than $4 million of this money will go to the Strathcona Regional District.<\/p>\n According to Cortes Island Regional Director\u00a0Noba Anderson<\/a>, \u201cInternet connectivity at a regional scale has been one of the key priorities of the Regional District for a little shy of a decade.\u201d<\/p>\n The provincial government press release mentions three north Quadra Island Sites \u2013\u00a0Granite<\/a>\u00a0Bay<\/a>,\u00a0Bold Point<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Open Bay<\/a>, as well as the village of\u00a0Zeballos<\/a>.<\/p>\n Anderson spoke about the three Cortes locations:\u00a0Whaletown<\/a>,\u00a0Squirrel Cove<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Mansons Landing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Telus has been looking at potential sites for communication towers<\/a>, but a number of Cortes residents expressed their opposition to this kind of idea when\u00a0Connected Coast came to Manson\u2019s Hall<\/a>\u00a0two years ago. They were concerned about electromagnetic waves emanating from wireless communication towers.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen the Regional District did outreach about our \u2018last mile\u2019 priorities\u00a0 a couple of years ago, it was really clear that people wanted fibre (cables) to their homes,\u201d explained Anderson. \u201cWe will get fibre active cable that will connect into that subsea cable, run along the telephone poles and into people\u2019s homes. As far as I understand, we need to have this project completed by the Fall.\u201d<\/p>\n She made it clear that this is not a business case that Telus or any other internet provider would have used, it was only financially feasible because of government funding.<\/p>\n Location of Zeballos in relationship to Campbell River \u2013 adapted from Google Maps by Roy L Hales<\/p><\/div>\n \u201cI really want to say thank-you to everybody who helped make the investment in coastal communities come to fruition. So many people in my constituency are looking forward to the Connected Coast project. It brings such great benefits to the North Vancouver Island, whether it be just connecting to government services (Tia health<\/a>), distance education,\u00a0Emergency Management BC<\/a>, or to create those economic diversification portfolios for those small communities that are trying to transition through our new economy,\u201d said\u00a0\u00a0North Island<\/a>\u00a0MLA\u00a0Michele Babchuk<\/a>, who was Chair of the Strathcona Regional District during the latter phase of negotiations.<\/p>\n She added, \u201cStruggling with those slow download speeds and unreliable connections has been (difficult) for people in the North Island.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the CRTC, 92% of households in B.C. with access to target speeds of 50 Mbps are largely in urban areas. If we look at rural B.C, only 36% of rural communities and 38% of rural Indigenous communities have access to the recommended broadband internet speeds.\u201d \u2013 Connectivity in B.C.<\/p><\/div><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n By Roy L Hales The Province of British Columbia will be bringing\u00a0fast reliable internet to remote communities\u00a0\u00a0like\u00a0Cortes Island,\u00a0Quadra Island\u00a0and\u00a0Zeballos by the fall of 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":49598,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[],"radio":[252],"origine":[280,266,231],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49589"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=49589"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=49589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sites](\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-30-at-4.50.01-AM.png\")
<\/a>Cortes, Quadra and Zeballos<\/h2>\n
![\"Zeballos\"](\"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-30-at-6.22.50-AM.png\")
<\/a>Importance to North Island<\/h2>\n
![\"Bringing](\"https:\/\/cortescurrents.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/Screen-Shot-2021-03-30-at-6.33.56-AM.png\")
Links of Interest<\/h2>\n
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