Local broadband foundation receives financial support

The Clearwater Broadband Foundation (CBF) received private funding for their 2017 pilot project.

Earlier this year the foundation approached the County and requested a loan of about $3.48 million to get fiber installed in the Gateway Industrial Park, but were rejected by a tight 4-3 vote.

CBF chair Michelle Swanson says the funding they have received isn’t the amount that they asked for from the County, but it’s enough to get them started.

“We’ll be ready to put something in the ground, as far as our fiber, we’re hoping that the plow will be able to go with all our permitting and excreta done hopefully in the next couple of weeks. So, we’re looking at the second week in September” said Swanson.

CBF hopes to provide an open access fiber-optic internet service for the area. For the first year CBF will be the sole internet service provider (ISP), but will later hopefully sell wholesale space on the infrastructure to other ISPs, which can then sell internet services to customers at competitive rates.

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“The successful community minded businesses realized that this is a project that’s not going to go away, this is a continuous problem” added Swanson. “So we approached some businesses and they feel that it is a benefit.”

CBF is also very keen on using local expertise as much as possible and, in hopes of creating job opportunities for Rocky and surrounding areas.

“This is exciting, we are going to drive more remote work for people that want to come out of the cities and want to come live here, it is its own economic driver in a sense, it’s not the goose that laid the golden egg but it is definitely a step in the right direction.”

Currently, the foundation is working on the legal groundwork which has been applying to Alberta Transportation for crossing agreements as well as with the County and Town for right of ways.