A new federal program is set to improve internet services to 300 homes from north of Mount Currie up to Devine.
The project is part of the Universal Broadband Fund’s Rapid Response Stream, through which the Government of Canada is aiming to improve high-speed internet around the Sunshine Coast and Sea to Sky corridor—along with the rest of the country.
“For too long part of our communities in West Vancouver, Sunshine Coast, and Sea to Sky country have not had access to the reliable, high-speed internet that they need,” said Patrick Weiler, Member of Parliament for the West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country riding, during a press conference on Thursday, Feb. 18. “Even before I was elected I heard from constituents … about the challenges they faced without broadband connectivity from the absolute one extent of my riding to the other.”
A total of $6.7 million in funding will allow TELUS Communications to bring high-speed internet to 1,977 households to north of Mount Currie, Steelhead, Ryder Lake, north-west of Princeton and the Sunshine Coast.
The project is expected to wrap up by November of this year.
“Today’s announcement includes $6.75 in federal funding for federal investments in this stream and, importantly in my riding, this includes over $3 million in federal investments in projects on the Sunshine Coast and Sea to Sky that will connect a total of 713 households with high-speed broadband connection, including several First Nations communities in the traditional territory of the Lil’wat and N’Quatqua Nations in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional district Area C. This includes laying new fibre core and last-mile connectivity all the way from Reid Road to Devine.”
The federal funding comes on the heels of provincial funding last year as part of the Whistler-to-Cache Creek project that installed a fibre-optic line between Whistler and Mount Currie.
