A proposal to bring broadband internet services to all southwestern Ontario will not achieve its goal.
That's the prediction of Independent Telecom Providers Association, who have appealed to Bruce County council to rethink how the Western Ontario Wardens Caucus will spend the $240-million proposed to build the SWIFT fibre optic network.
Former Wightman Telecom CEO Tom Sullivan says telecom companies have already built fibre optic networks in communities in Bruce County, pointing out there's no business case to expand fibre optic to sparsely populated rural areas.
He says the SWIFT network proposes to build the backbone network to rural areas, but it would still be up to the telecom companies to run the fibre optics up and down each concession and sideroad, predicting the cost could run between $5,000 and $15,000 per connection.
"There is not a viable business case to take fibre to the home in a rural environment. It's just too expensive. My farm is 900 ft across and there's three of them on my road and it's a full concession. It just doesn't make sense to run fibre up that road," says Sullivan.
Sullivan says a better use of the money would be to help create incentive for telecom companies to bid to expand existing fibre networks into more rural areas, which he calls "last mile" builds.
Sullivan adds ITPA members, which in Bruce County includes Wightman, Bruce Telecom and Hurontel, will not be using the SWIFT network if it is built, pointing out they would not risk losing customers by switching to a network that does not have proven reliability.
Warden Mitch Twolan sits on the SWIFT committee as part of the Western Ontario Wardens Caucus and says they need to hear all the information about the pros and cons of SWIFT, pointing out there's lots of time to do research and to find the best solution.
Bruce County council has committed $860,000 to the SWIFT project.
