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By David Opinko

Benefits of building rural broadband network in Alberta far outweighs costs: study

Nov 7, 2019 | 5:08 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – A new study has found that, for every dollar invested into building high-speed broadband networks across Alberta’s rural areas, we would see around three dollars of economic benefit or more.

SouthGrow Regional Economic Development hired Dr. Kien Tran and Jeff Davidson to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of investing heavily into rural internet.

“We decided to establish the minimum return on investment by looking at the most expensive hypothetical models and using them as test cases under the assumption that every real-world project would have an even higher return on investment,” says Dr. Tran. “…We were very conservative in our estimates, and so I can confidently say that the numbers for broadband look very good.”

The researchers played out two scenarios.

In the first, they calculated the cost of deploying a brand-new fiber-optic network in every community in Alberta with fiber running in every home. This would cost just over $12-billion over a 20-year period. They projected a 2.97-to-1 return on investment (ROI) in this scenario in categories like health, government, education, social savings, consumer savings, farm income, and business revenue.

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In the other, they extended the existing Alberta SuperNet to all of the remaining communities. Under this model, the ROI was 3.23-to-1.

“The message here is that it’s time to make these investments and get Alberta caught up to other parts of the world that are leaving us behind,” says SouthGrow Chairperson Jim Willett. “Other provinces should take note as well. Connected communities make for a strong country. It’s time to finish bridging the digital divide.

The study was done in partnership with the Government of Alberta, Taylor Warwick Consulting, Blood Tribe Economic Development, the County of Vulcan, Lethbridge County, Cardston County, and the M.D. of Taber.