Rural eastern Ontario to receive improved cellular service

The Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN), a non-profit organization created by the Eastern Ontario Wardens’ Caucus (EOWC), announced with Rogers that improved cell service is now available in rural areas in eastern Ontario.

Regions covered in this announcement include areas surrounding Maxville, Greenfield, Glen Robertson and Wendover.

The service improvement is a part of the EORN’s C$300 million Cell Gap Project that aims to improve cellular service quality across rural eastern Ontario. The federal and provincial governments contributed C$71 million each and an additional C$10 million came from EOWC and members of the Eastern Ontario Mayor’s Caucus (EOMC).

Related: Canada’s network usage is exploding, and rural communities are getting left behind

Rogers was selected to spearhead the network expansion through a “competitive bidding process.” It will build more than 300 new telecommunication towers and will upgrade more than 300 existing sites by 2025. Rogers has already upgraded 260 sites, and construction of new towers is underway.

Through the project, EORN promises to bring voice calling services to 99 per cent of the people living in rural eastern Ontario, as well as cover at least 95 percent of the area with standard-definition level services for video conferencing and streaming. Additionally, 85 per cent of the area will receive cellular service capable of supporting high-definition video streaming, particularly in areas where traditional broadband isn’t available.

All current and future infrastructure expansions will support the transition to 5G.

The project page says the project will create more than 3,000 full-time equivalent jobs and C$420 million in new business revenue over 10 years.

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Tom Li
Tom Li
Telecommunication and consumer hardware are Tom's main beats at IT World Canada. He loves to talk about Canada's network infrastructure, semiconductor products, and of course, anything hot and new in the consumer technology space. You'll also occasionally see his name appended to articles on cloud, security, and SaaS-related news. If you're ever up for a lengthy discussion about the nuances of each of the above sectors or have an upcoming product that people will love, feel free to drop him a line at tli@itwc.ca.

Featured Articles

Cybersecurity in 2024: Priorities and challenges for Canadian organizations 

By Derek Manky As predictions for 2024 point to the continued expansion...

Survey shows generative AI is a top priority for Canadian corporate leaders.

Leaders are devoting significant budget to generative AI for 2024 Canadian corporate...

Related Tech News

Tech Jobs

Our experienced team of journalists and bloggers bring you engaging in-depth interviews, videos and content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives.

Tech Companies Hiring Right Now