Heather Wright/The Independent

It’s either feast or famine when it comes to internet service in rural Lambton County.

After years of struggling to get any company to service its community, Dawn-Euphemia now has another internet provider ready to sign up residents to high speed service.

Five years ago, politicians were searching for ways to provide better coverage in the southern most municipality in Lambton. Some residents could not access traditional service and had to use expensive internet data sticks.

Last year MPV out of Thamesville worked with an internet consortium to come up with a new high speed service for much of Dawn-Euphemia – focusing on getting the village of Florence online.

The system used farm buildings, like grain elevators, as towers for the service. The network has been operational since the fall of 2020.

Now, Mayor Al Broad, says Cogeco has been given a federal grant to provide an internet service between Rutherford and Florence.

Cogeco plans to provide Fiber to the Home to 145 residences in the region for a total cost of $882,000. The Canadian Radio and Television Commission is giving Cogeco $540,000 or 64 per cent of the project’s cost to complete the effort.

Cogeco is now working out the details of the plan but it’s not clear when construction will actually begin.

Broad is pleased yet another project is on the horizon and says it will be good for the people of Florence to have a choice of internet providers after struggling to get any internet provider at all.