The Province of Nova Scotia pioneers a business model for rural high-speed internet

In 2006, a majority of Nova Scotians enjoyed high-speed Internet service, but broadband connectivity was still unavailable for thousands of citizens living in rural areas. The government of Nova Scotia recognized the lack of high-speed Internet access to be a key social and economic issue for the more rural areas of the province. Although 78 percent of the province’s roughly one million residents had broadband connectivity, these were mostly located in Halifax, Sydney and other urban areas. About 200,000 citizens, 93,500 dwellings, 5,600 businesses and hundreds of schools and medical facilities remained unserved because they lived outside the reach of traditional wired broadband technologies.