Residents in the Columbia Basin and Boundary regions are being urged to try out a new online testing portal which is designed to measure Internet connection speeds.

“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,” explained Regional Broadband Committee Chair Rob Gay. “This online portal will provide us with specific data and give us a much clearer picture of the true state of our current connectivity.”

Residents can access the testing portal and run the performance test as many times as they would like and the committee is hoping to see strong participation.

“The more data we collect, the greater our understanding will be. We are hoping to see people from every geographic corner of the region participate,” said Gay, Regional District of East Kootenay Board Chair and Electoral Area C Director.

The data will not only be helpful in providing the committee with valuable data, it will also help to prioritize areas of need, and be useful in determining eligibility for federal and provincial connectivity granting programs.

Although there has been some work done to identify the state of connectivity in rural regions such as ours, to date there is a shortage of accurate and quantifiable data.  “This performance test will help us close that data gap and we strongly encourage residents to login at least once,” added Gay.

Access the online portal.

Participants provide their location and hit start. The test takes less than two minutes to run.

The Regional Broadband Committee was established in 2014 and includes elected officials from Columbia Shuswap Regional District, Ktunaxa Nation Council, Regional District of Central Kootenay, Regional District of East Kootenay, Regional District of Kootenay Boundary and Village of Valemount.

RDEK

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