[Nehkara]

Small Alberta town gets massive 1,000 mbps broadband boost

Ultrafast internet speeds that most Canadian city dwellers can only dream of will soon be available to all 8,500 residents in a rural Alberta community for as little as $57 a month, thanks to a project by the town's non-profit economic development foundation.

"We'll be the first 'gig town' in Canada," said Nathan Kusiek, director of marketing for O-Net, the community-owned internet service provider that runs the fibre optic network being built by the non-profit Olds Institute for Community and Regional Development in Olds, Alta., about 90 kilometres north of Calgary.

On Thursday, the board of O-Net gave approval for residents to get access to a full gigabit (or 1,000 megabits) per second of bandwidth for the same price that they currently pay for a guaranteed download speed of 100 megabits per second — $57 to $90 a month, depending on whether they have bundled their internet with TV and phone service.