The Eastern Ontario Regional Network (EORN) has announced that they now have received $300 million in funding for their cell gap project.
The Ontario government has matched the federal investment of $71 million.
Chair of the Network and Peterborough County’s Warden J. Murray Jones says Rogers Communication has been contracted to build the project and will invest $150 million into construction. He says that the company has delivered a comprehensive solution to provide quality cell coverage for Eastern Ontario.
A further $10 million has been invested by the Eastern Ontario Warden’s Caucus.
The cell gap project aims to build 300 new telecommunication towers, upgrade another 300 and aims to bring cell service to 99-percent of eastern Ontario. The project hopes to improve public safety and boost the rural economy. Officials with Rogers say residents will see cell reception improvement by the end of the year, but due to the time it takes to build new towers, the project will take until 2025 to complete.
The first step of the project will be in upgrading existing towers.
The project will use 5G technology and EORN stresses the conclusive evidence says the technology is safe.
“Helping our rural economies recover and better connect families through reliable cellular coverage has been my focus and I am thrilled we are able to deliver this great news people have been waiting for,” Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Laurie Scott says.