The telecommunications company Xplornet currently has crews across the Pontiac building out fiber optic infrastructure, which is expected to give most of the Pontiac access to high-speed internet by September.

“We have eight or nine crews on site everyday building out the . . .

network,” said Charles Beaudet, Vice president for Quebec at Xplornet.

Xplornet received $57.5 million to connect 15,310 households in the region last year from funds sourced from both the provincial and federal government and is working on fiber-to-home infrastructure in every community between Waltham and the Municipality of Pontiac.

Xplornet says that any home with a Hydro Quebec power line will be able to have a fiber optic connection in their home starting in September.

“We’re not chasing density,” said Beaudet. “We’re chasing homes. So, we want 99 per cent of the homes to be connected to the fiber optic network.”

Xplornet says they are on track to have the infrastructure work complete by June 2022, and then start connecting communities by September.

The CAQ government promised all of Quebec would have access to high-speed internet by the end of their mandate during the last provincial election.

“Our timelines are extremely tight,” said Beaudet. “But we’re doing everything we can to meet them and may even be ahead of time.”

Jane Toller Warden of MRC Pontiac initially involved in plans to build high speed internet in the region. She says that the Quebec government’s action saved the MRC money and time. “[The MRC’s] plan would have taken three or four years to develop and we would have had to go to the taxpayers and ask for some money,” said Toller. Now that the initiative is coming from the province, “the pressure is on them to deliver.”

Beaudet said that without government subsidies it would almost be impossible to build the rural network because fiber optic is so expensive to deploy. “Whereas other technologies are less expensive, fiber optic is the best one,” he said.

The price will vary between $60 to $99 per month depending on the rate plan, with speeds ranging for 50 mbps download and upload at the low end to one gbps at the high end, according to Beaudet.

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