With the plans to see money come back into the RM of Portage la Prairie, council agreed to move forward and invest in an Internet Service Provider comprised of municipalities.

Counsellor for Ward 4 in the RM of Portage, and director on the board of John Q Public, Roy Tufford, explains the manner in which the RM became a part of John Q Public.

Roy Tufford"John Q Public was an arrangement where someone had a brainchild that a bunch of municipalities could get together and start to source services that municipalities need and use jointly, and realize savings for the member of municipalities," says Tufford. "And it started with the Winnipeg Metro Region as 19 municipalities. Unfortunately, only 12 decided to become part of John Q Public, which is the Municipal Participation Corporation that was formed to do that."

He says the RM of Portage la Prairie got involved a little late, after having been invited to take part after some members dropped out.

"They understood that we're kind of a vast municipality and that our need for Internet connectivity is big," adds Tufford. "They brought us in as a partner and we paid our share to become a shareholder in John Q Public, and we're very happy that they did invite us in."

Tufford explains the RM is actually now in the business of supplying fibre optic internet service as a result. He says, though they came into the venture late, ironically they're the first to benefit.

"The first fibre optic cable that's going in the ground in this initiative is happening in the RM of Portage," continues Tufford. "And again, we're pretty pleased about that. How much of that expands in the Municipality of Portage la Prairie will depend on the business case and how quickly we could grow the business. We're shareholders. John Q. Public and the member municipalities are 50 per cent shareholders in this new Internet Service Provider company called JQ Connect. If this thing grows and becomes very profitable, there is a potential down the road, after everybody's hooked up, to start to get dividends paid back to those member municipalities."

He notes this will likely occur over the next number of years, but it's better than having money sent to a giant ISP provider that will only export the profits completely out of the area.

"The faster we can grow this, the quicker we can get everybody hooked up," adds Tufford. "We've applied for grants and we're investigating other sources of financing to grow it. If we grow it with the proceeds of the revenues that we're getting from our hookups, it's not going to proceed at the speed that I think most of our member municipalities would like to see it grow."

He says the drawing cards for you to get hooked up, if you're in that area, include the reliability of fibre optics and more.

"Fibre optic technology is not going to get to be outdated very quickly," says Tufford. "So, it is time-proof. We're looking at probably a 50-year lifespan before it maybe gets to be obsolete. And it's got really good speed. There are no limits to data, and it's what people need to conduct business or have a nice home system. If it gets to be a really, really big network, then I don't know what the possibilities are for offering your services and packages, and all that kind of stuff. But right now, we're offering a moderately priced package with speed of 100 Mbps up and 100 Mbps down."

Tufford says the Oakville/Newton area is going ahead right now.

"They're still optimistic that they'll get people hooked up this year yet," notes Tufford. "And then from there, it will proceed into different areas of that region covered by the 13-member municipalities. In terms of funding right now, there were five municipalities and RFNOW (a company who joined the effort). Each put up one-quarter of $1,000,000 to get this cable in the ground. But that is not money that that was just given to the company. It's just a loan from the member municipalities that will be paid back. And for the first few years, it'll be interest-only. And then as the business grows and the revenue stream grows, they'll be paying back that money."