Fibre-optic Internet in Vauxhall getting closer to fruition

By Nikki Jamieson
Vauxhall Advance
njamieson@tabertimes.com

The home stretch is in sight for fibre optic Internet in Vauxhall.

During their regular Feb. 21 meeting, Vauxhall town council reviewed a potential contract with Axia to install a fibre optic network in town.

Although they are just shy of the 30 per cent benchmark to get the company to install their fibre optic network in town for free at 29 per cent, council is trying to prepare for when Axia approaches them to inform them the benchmark has been hit and they can install when ready.

However, council is trying to keep interest in the community up, in case Axia decides they would like to see more people in Vauxhall indicate their interest in the service.

“They don’t always let it go at 30 per cent, sometimes they like to see it a little bit higher before they go,” said Margaret Plumtree, mayor of Vauxhall.

“Before they committed to another 40 municipalities before that it used to be more around 40 per cent, before this contract stuff started happening and they made the commitment to build. So now they said they wanted another 40 municipalities, I’m wondering if it would be faster.”

Vauxhall residents have been asked to visit https://www.axia.com/alberta to sign up to indicate their interest in the service.

Once at least 30 per cent of households in a community sign up, the deal was Axia would install for free.

As this is just to indicate your interest, it does not bind you to purchase the service from them; it is simply to say that you would potentially be interested in the service.

Although the contract was reviewed, council hasn’t signed anything, preferring to wait for more information and interest.

“They are the only ones so far, but if someone was to come along, like Telus, and say ‘Hey, you know, we’ll build it, we’ll put you for June of 2017, we’ll come in and build it, here’s the paperwork’, then it binds us.”

Council passed a motion to table the contract until more interest was garnered for the project.

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