Rural Internet Needs Study

The Internet Needs Survey is now closed. We had over 1,000 survey submissions and will be bringing a report to Council in the coming weeks. Thank you for your participation.

Reliable internet is a critical infrastructure for all communities, but one that has been noticeably lacking for residents in rural communities such as Prince Edward County. This gap in infrastructure has become all the more noticeable given the COVID-19 pandemic and the move to on-line platforms for a range of services from health care to education to e-commerce.

In an effort to better understand the current state of broadband internet for homes and business in Prince Edward County, the municipality is seeking feedback from residents. While Internet Service Provider's (ISP's) have made strides in recent years to provide improved services throughout The County, many residents are still left with intermittent or poor upload and download speeds for home education and business internet solutions.

The goal of this public consultation is to development a 'heat map' of The County showing internet service 'gap areas'. Prince Edward County is a geographically diverse area, with many valley and hills that prove problematic for wireless internet transmission. In addition, some areas may be too far from any nearby wireless tower. In some cases, a tower may be servicing too many residents, causing slow speeds at certain times of the day. In addition, seasonally, many may experience slow connectivity during the peak summer visitor season as the number of users on a wireless network greatly increases.

This public consultation attempts to identify those concern areas with your help!

Providing feedback is not a guarantee that your internet availability or service will improve in the near future. The municipality is not an Internet Service Provider. Gap areas will be provided to local and regional ISP's in an effort to help them better plan future upgrades by understanding current demand for internet service.

The municipality has also provided letters of support to providers seeking federal funding, most recently for Cogeco that is proposing to build out fibre infrastructure to connect customers to high speed Internet. The upfront costs to build a reliable network are significant, and while there are commitments by federal and provincial governments to invest in connecting individuals, there remains considerable challenges to implement universal connectivity across the County without incentives.

The Internet Needs Survey is now closed. We had over 1,000 survey submissions and will be bringing a report to Council in the coming weeks.

Thank you!