Cutting red tape and rolling out high-speed internet across the province.

Bold broadband ambitions require an even bolder delivery approach. Here in Ontario, the provincial government has committed to connecting all Ontarians to a minimum level of high-speed internet service by 2025. This represents a mandate like no other. And it requires a solutions-based approach like nothing we’ve done before.

Why? This promise is backed by a nearly $4 billion investment—the largest of its kind in Canadian history. It holds the potential to close a widening digital divide; one made critically worse as the pandemic drew new barriers to access around healthcare, education, work and social services. When the world flipped the switch to digital in March 2020, the 270,0000 Ontario households struggling to access high-speed internet faced an onslaught of new challenges. From one day to the next, 1.4 million Ontarians who already lacked access to this essential service suddenly risked being shout out of everything from online school to family medicine. Existing coverage gaps once capable of limiting commercial growth and business innovation became cavernous craters, separating internet haves from the have nots in increasingly detrimental ways.

Enter the need for the Accelerated High-Speed Internet Program (AHSIP), created to ensure every household and business, in every Ontario community, has fulsome access to the digital world. Supported by legislative and regulatory changes, AHSIP seeks to solve this complex challenge through a relentless commitment to collaboration. Grounded in a spirit of transparency, the program dismantles industry and government silos by rallying public and private stakeholders to this singularly important mission. Because improving coordination and cooperation across the board doesn’t only enable stronger broadband, faster. It unlocks new possibilities for all Ontarians, and holds the potential to lift the province’s GDP by billions of dollars.?

Low population density, expansive distances and tough terrain have complicated internet connectivity efforts for years. Limited access to fibre-ready infrastructure, disconnects around construction activity, and an incredibly vast landscape of government programs have created additional layers of complexity. Overcoming obstacles, and realizing these high-speed connectivity goals, requires us to work with industry to build more infrastructure quickly, with fewer issues along the way. Getting there requires a more integrated approach to project management, driven by a holistic vision for the future. AHSIP is driving meaningful steps forward in that direction.

For the very first time, the province has market input and feedback on the viability of deploying high-speed internet to every Ontarian. By introducing new timelines and guidelines, AHSIP has developed clear competitive procurement processes. An innovative, high-speed internet funding model has been deployed across Ontario. Reverse auctions are creating opportunities for internet service providers to meet defined coverage and deployment requirements at reasonable prices. Red-tape reduction collaborative conversations and clearer channels for dispute resolution are making it easier and more efficient to use existing infrastructure and navigate rights of way across geographies. New investments to build and expand training and learning opportunities are encouraging a rich pipeline of future talent, capable of supporting these infrastructure investments on the ground in the years to come.

All of this is making an impact. What’s more, because AHSIP has embraced a data-first approach, every milestone achieved here represents an additional possibility for the future. By centralizing efforts through a new information and data gathering platform (Broadband One Window), AHSIP isn’t only supporting timely approvals, permitting and locate decisions for high-speed internet projects. This powerful new tool is simultaneously creating comprehensive and accurate mapping and modelling of Ontario infrastructure in near real-time. That’s huge. This rich insight can fuel and support projects tied to broadband - and essentially any other infrastructure build - for decades to come.

In Ontario and around the world, one in four households experienced a reduction in network reliability during the COVID-19 pandemic. Half of all rural users were frustrated by an inability to tap into the fastest internet speeds - even as they paid up to three and a half times more for internet than their urban counterparts. In the more metropolitan, 905 ring around the Greater Toronto Area, nearly 100,000 citizens continue to experience broadband coverage gaps. That’s simply not good enough. Through AHSIP, we’re creating sustainable, measurable momentum to ensure high-speed internet access is never out of reach for any Ontarian, ever again. We’re working across the public and private spheres to move people and businesses forward, regardless of where in Ontario they are located. Are you ready to come on board, and play a part??Reach out to me at [email protected] or the program team at: [email protected] to learn more.