Pictou County council is going to borrow some of the money needed to begin connecting more
homes to high-speed internet. Council passed a resolution to borrow up to $24.9 million dollars as part of its Rural Broadband Strategy. Much of the funding for the multi-year project will come from federal and provincial infrastructure funding, but County CAO Brian Cullen says there will be some costs that the county will have to incur up front before the federal and provincial money comes in. Warden Robert Parker says there will be due diligence in making sure the project bill doesn’t go too high, but at the same time it’s an important investment in the community.
The first step is an engineering survey to estimate the costs for connection across the county, which should be finished before the end of summer. The plan is to start with 600 homes connected by the end of the year.