Internet connectivity across the Town of The Blue Mountains (TBM) is hit and miss, and as more families and individuals reside in the area and are working or schooling from home, the need for a reliable broadband connection increases too.
In an effort to drive investment in broadband locally, TBM has launched the Rural Access to Broadband Internet Technology (RABIT) Task Force, which is now calling on all residents to perform a CIRA Internet Performance Test.
“I can confirm I did the test. That was the good news, I was able to do it. The bad news is my internet is very slow,” said TBM Mayor Alar Soever.
As each user performs a CIRA test, their data is anonymously collected and aggregated into a large data set that spans all of Canada. This data provides the ability to compare connection speeds with other people in the neighbourhood, city or across the country.
“I am looking forward to seeing all the results and so we can identify all the areas of the town where we need to upgrade the internet,” Soever added.
For the month of May, RABIT is aiming to add 2,500 test results to the CIRA database on internet speeds in TBM.
Individuals are able and encouraged to run the test several different times, as internet connectivity can change throughout the day of the week and time of the day.
At a council meeting held on May 17, Tim Hendry, director of communications and economic development for TBM, said so far RABIT had collected 1,300 CIRA tests.
He added that residents who have no internet connection are also encouraged to participate in the project, as registering the location where there is no connectivity is just as valuable to service providers.
“We have a system in place to track those. Surprisingly, there are quite a few residents that have indicated that they'd love to participate, but they do not have the internet. We've been capturing all that data and supplying it back to CIRA,” Hendry said.
Contact information and detailed instructions on how to run the CIRA test can be found on the project website.
