New Brunswick’s Xplornet announced on Tuesday plans to expand its wireless broadband in Manitoba to over 125,000 homes and businesses in the province.
Construction is underway to expand 5G-ready wireless broadband to close to 350 rural and 30 First Nation communities, as part of the newly inked Rural Broadband Expansion Agreement with the Government of Manitoba.
The agreement means Xplornet will gain access to 3,200 km of dark fibre backbone from Manitoba Hydro, while the company will also deploy an extra 1,500 km of fibre optic cable and also install wireless broadband hardware onto 224 towers, offering speeds of 50Mbps download and 10Mbps download, while up to 1Gbps in fibre areas.
“We are pleased to sign this agreement with the Government of Manitoba to achieve our shared goal of increased connectivity in communities across Manitoba,” said Allison Lenehan, President and CEO, Xplornet Communications, in a statement. “This is an important milestone in our plan to connect rural Manitobans to fast, reliable and affordable high-speed Internet using next generation broadband technologies.”
You can watch a video of Tuesday’s announcement below:
Xplornet plans to invest $500 million for its scalable fibre and 5G fixed wireless technology by 2025; existing fibre-to-the-home projects already exist in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Alberta, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
The wireless broadband expansion in Manitoba is expected to complete by the end of 2023.
