Welcome to the self-proclaimed Rural Ottawa High-Speed Internet Blog. High-speed Internet access is virtually ubiquitous in the urban and suburban areas of Ottawa, but when I started this blog in 2005, only about 60% of the rural areas of Ottawa have coverage. However, even for rural citizens, high-speed Internet access is becoming as necessary as telephone service. Happily, high-speed coverage for rural Ottawa has increased significantly, and not only is coverage reportedly above 90%, many rural residents and businesses now have more than one choice of high-speed ISP.

This purpose of this weblog is to track news and events related to high-speed (broadband) Internet access in the rural areas of Ottawa and, to a lesser extent, in nearby townships.

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Thursday, June 28, 2007

OttawaStart: City signs contract with Barrett Xplore - 100% rural broadband coverage by end of summer

According to an OttawaStart article dated June 16, the City has completed negotiations with XplorNet, and 100% of rural Ottawa should have broadband access by summer's end.

The article repeats the claim that only 5% of rural homes will need satellite access and that the rest will be able to have fixed wireless access. Fixed wireless packages start at $29.99 per month, with basic installation costs of $149 with a two-year contract and $99 with a three-year contract. Satellite packages start at $49.99 per month, with a significantly reduced installation of $199.

Click here to find out more.

See also the City of Ottawa's Rural Connections page.

posted by Chris Spencer at 7:34 am 1 comments

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

What appears to be a broadband tower, has just been erected on a farmer's silo in the far south end of Ottawa. The tower is located on Stagecoach Road between Dalmeny Road and Belmeade Road. Not sure who the owner of this new equipment is, but the antenna array looks much more sophisticated than Arryba's (now Storm's) blue pole antennas found on other silos throughout the region. Perhaps this is a Motorola Canopy employed by Xplornet.

Derek..

July 05, 2007 1:38 pm  

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