A new online testing portal is available from the Regional Broadband Committee allowing residents across the entire Columbia Basin to measure their internet connection speeds while also providing data so they can assess areas of need around the region.
“The Regional Broadband Committee has been working to get a better understanding of current broadband services and to advocate for high-speed internet for residents and businesses within the Columbia Basin and Boundary regions,” said Rob Gay, Chair of Regional Broadband Committee. “This online portal will provide us with specific data and give us a much clearer picture of the true state of our current connectivity.”
The Committee is hoping for strong participating in order to gauge internet connectivity across the East Kootenay, as a resident can use the testing portal and run as many performance tests as they would like.
“The more data we collect, the greater our understanding will be,” added Gay. “We are hoping to see people from every geographic corner of the region participate.”
Collecting the data, the Regional Broadband Committee will then be able to prioritize areas of need, also serving as a useful tool to see if those areas are eligible for federal and provincial connectivity granting programs.
“This performance test will help us close that data gap and we strongly encourage residents to login at least once,” said Gay.
While some work has been done to identify the state of internet connectivity in rural regions around the East Kootenay, there is still a shortage of accurate and quantifiable data. The new online portal hopes to provide that data to the Committee.
The Regional Broadband Committee was firsts established in 2014 and includes elected officials from the Regional District of East Kootenay and the Ktunaxa Nation Council, also including officials from the Regional District of Central Kootenay, Regional District of Kootenay Boundary, Columbia Shuswap Regional District and the Village of Valemount.
The online test takes approximately two minutes to run as participants simply need to mark their location and hit start.
More: Columbia Bains Internet Performance Test (Regional Broadband Committee)