The RM of Portage la Prairie has entered a partnership with an Internet providing company. They've made great headway in bringing state-of-the-art high-speed Internet to its rural residents.

Roy Tufford is RM of Portage la Prairie councillor in Ward Four, and sits on the JohnQ Public Board of Directors, a company that's in partnership with the service provider RFNow. He outlines the difference that offering fibre optic Internet connectivity is making in the municipality.

"Our Internet service provider that we're working with has come into our municipality from the west and has made their way to Oakville, going around the city and out south toward Southport, and down 331 to Oakville," says Tufford. "They have hooked up many, many people along that route and in the town of Oakville. And after Oakville, they headed north toward Poplar Point, down 13 and 430 highways."

Tufford explains they laid a large amount of cable in that area, and continued to connect people throughout the municipality.

"There are plans to go off in other directions west of the base, north of Portage, at Peony Farm," adds Tufford. "Those are all part of the plans. There's just no timeframe right now available on those."

He says the appeal to fibre optics is that you simply can't get anything better for Internet connectivity.

"It's got amazing speeds -- 200 up and down as a minimum," adds Tufford. "And the people that have it are blown away by the quality that they have. So, if we can get that, it's going to be great for our municipality, great for our businesses, great for our farms, and for individuals who just want to have that ability to connect to the Internet without the problems that we're currently seeing through the RF -- the radiofrequency service that most of us have now."

Tufford notes other alternative means to connect simply don't have enough towers.

"When they do have towers, they seem to be oversold so that your service slows down from time to time," says Tufford. "In fact, it goes almost to 0 at times, and that's not going to happen with fibre optic. There shouldn't be any reason, unless somebody cuts that fibre optic cable, to have interferences. With radiofrequency, weather impacts it. That doesn't happen with fibre optics."

Tufford explains the radio frequency connectivity is limiting its output to people, which has been a complaint for several users.

"It could be a lot faster, but then they could service fewer people with the tower," continues Tufford. "That kind of limitation is not there for fibre optic. There's a NOC -- a network operation centre -- in Oakville, and they'll be putting, maybe, one or two more throughout the municipality. So, it should be good."