Solving Municipal Broadband – Red Deer County’s journey

Red Deer County’s broadband project expects to embark on the next step of its journey – creating a Municipally Controlled Corporation (MCC) – soon.

In December 2022, the county allocated funds for an MCC contingent on receiving a $10-million grant from the Government of Canada via the Universal Broadband Fund (UBF). Funding has since been confirmed. 

Red Deer County wants to formally release those funds via a public hearing on June 13 and start building CONNECT (‘Rural Connect Limited’).  

This entity, which will operate as a not-for-profit organization, will maintain the broadband network and the affordability of its services for its customers, and return excess revenues to public-sector shareholders (i.e., participating municipalities). 

CONNECT would also be mandated by the Government of Alberta to be an open network – allowing private companies to provide services via CONNECT to residents.

Red Deer County started their broadband initiative back in 2019. Since then, it has invested $20M to make high-speed internet available to communities within county boundaries by 2024.

With many hamlets and the Village of Delburne already benefiting from this initiative, the future looks ‘connected’ for Red Deer County.

For background information on Red Deer County’s broadband project, take a look at last year’s article.

For more information, please contact danb [at] abmunis.ca (Dan Blackburn), Senior Director of Growth & Innovation.