Rural and remote communities have long borne the brunt of poor internet access because of obstacles such as low population densities, extreme environmental conditions and their seclusion from service centres relative to urban centres. Large technology companies  Aren’t attracted to the economics that small remote and rural communities provide. Residents in such areas consequently find themselves deprived of what is commonly considered to be the minimum level of connectivity service in today’s society. 

The Alberta Broadband Strategy was initiated to dissolve the digital divide across the province. “Nearly 489,000 Albertans do not have access to the internet speeds they need to work and learn from home. 67% of rural Albertans and 80% of Indigenous communities do not have access to reliable high-speed internet at federal target speeds. This represents approximately 201,000 households, or 489,000 Albertans, who are at an economic disadvantage to their peers living in urban centres.”

BrooksNET Carves a Path for a Technology Upgrade in Brooks

Community Network Partners (CNP) was established with the goal of empowering rural and remote communities with access to technology tools. It achieves that by engaging with communities in the ownership of critical infrastructure, providing capital, and offering resources to create a technology infrastructure that chiefly serves members of the community, and keeps the welfare within the community. Brooks, a rural town in Alberta, was one those places that CNP sought to transform. Accordingly, it partnered with the City of Brooks to bring optical fibre internet technology to residents of Brooks. Thus, BrooksNET was born, to build the infrastructure required to provide high-quality and high-speed fibre internet access to Brooks residents and businesses.

BrooksNET provides the underlying infrastructure so that internet Service Providers (ISPs) such as Galaxy Fibre can provide internet service to every dwelling within the City. Galaxy Fibre is the first ISP on the BrooksNET network, bringing fibre internet to Brooks so residents can stream, work from home, game and all-around use the internet seamlessly without downtime or interruptions. The goal of BrooksNet is to provide and “Open-Access” network infrastructure to multiple ISP’s so that residents can enjoy the benefits of competitively priced services, and the freedom of choice. 

BrooksNET and Galaxy Fibre Blaze Trails 

Every neighbourhood in Brooks will have access to fibre internet, and the construction work to build the underlying technology has been moving steadily to light up the entire city. The kind of fibre that BrooksNET and Galaxy Fibre are providing is best-in-class; the kind of pure fibre that is vastly superior to commonly provided legacy internet technology. BrooksNET will provide Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH), which is 100% pure fibre that goes directly to households and businesses. Most of the fibre provided by large telecom companies is Fibre-to-the-neighbourhood (FTTN). With FTTN, the internet initially goes to a node that serves as the local distribution unit for a neighbourhood. Up to that point, it is fibre connectivity that reaches the node. However all customers in that neighbourhood will then get internet through a shared coaxial cable distribution from that node, With 100% FTTH, BrooksNET Fibre allows users in Brooks to experience a vastly superior internet experience now, and well into the future.

1. Fastest internet speed

Users can stream, game, work or browse the internet without any interruptions or buffering inconveniences. 

2. Symmetrical download and upload speed

ISPs typically allocate more bandwidth to downloads than uploads due to technology constraints. With FTTH, internet speed is equally fast both up and down.

3. Future-proof technology

Fibre scales to allow future technologies and feature rich applications to be seamlessly integrated. It provides a flexible, future-proof infrastructure that can easily accommodate technology evolution.

4. Higher security

Optical Fibre technology offers a far more secure means  for data transmission than legacy cable internet. With data breaches becoming more common than ever, fibre meets security needs effectively.

CNP envisions a future where all rural and remote communities have equal access to technology. We aim to remove the disparities that exist between communities in rural and urban locations, until the so-called digital divide fades into something completely in the past. 

Contact us to learn more about how we can bring broadband technology to your community.