Faster than the speed of … the earth cooling?

In 2008, the then-Liberal government of Prince Edward Island announced a deal with Bell Aliant to provide high-speed Internet service to every household in the province by the end of 2009.

Island taxpayers were to provide $8.2 million to the private telecommunications company to cover the cost of implementing that service.

In exchange, and in addition to giving $8.2M out of the pockets of taxpayers, the province also agreed to pay Bell Aliant an additional $12 million to provide phone services to the provincial government on a five-year deal.

At the time, Bruce Howatt, vice-president of Bell Aliant in P.E.I., said it was not a question of 'if' but 'when' every rural Islander would have access to highspeed internet.

Boy, he wasn't kidding when he said: ‘when’. Here we are 12 years later and the calls from rural areas for a reasonable internet speed seem as loud and frequent as ever. In fairness to the province and the company, the acceptable measure of 'high speed' internet in 2009 was much lower than it is today. Regardless, to date, that threshold, whatever it is/was, has not yet been met in all areas as promised.

Compounding public perception of this failure to deliver is the fact that contracts with Bell have been extended numerous times (and cancelled without explanation at other times), with similar lacklustre results and more taxpayer dollars.

Jump to 2020 and Fernwood, P.E.I., resident Claire Brown told The Guardian that internet speeds at her home "can be really ridiculous." She doesn't mean fast.

Minimum standard speeds for broadband internet in 2020, set by the Canadian Radio-television and Communications Commission (CRTC), are 50-megabit download and 10-megabit upload.

Today's Progressive Conservative provincial government signed a new deal in March 2020 with Bell and another internet provided, Xplornet. It was an agreement first announced by the previous Liberal government in 2019.

The latest agreements claim improved internet services in Island households with about 97 per cent of them reaching the minimum mandatory speeds.

The new agreement with Bell will see the fibre upgrades to 9,422 homes while the agreement with Xplornet will see upgrades to a total of 20,000 homes.

Economic Growth Minister Matthew MacKay said there are around 2,000 civic addresses on P.E.I. that are not covered under the $74 million agreement.

Taking these numbers at face value, we seem to have more than 30,000 addresses without acceptable high-speed internet; Statistics Canada reports there are only 60- 70,000 residences in the province. That means little more than half of Island addresses meet minimum standard internet speeds. This is probably a good spot to also mention that the starting number of households in 2008 was not zero.

If this is the case what, aside from the pillaging of provincial coffers, has happened in the last 10-plus years?

Where has our money gone? Who has it?

It's past time a probe into this disaster takes place. And it's long past time that Islanders have functional internet.