jan-2018

70 71 channels, plus the new website. Now, we’ll be the very first municipality in our region to boast 100 percent coverage of high-speed internet. My catch phrase is ‘We’re not just doing fiber to the home; we’re doing fiber to the farm.’ That’s what’s going to set us apart. You can find fiber to the home all over the place, but it’s always in these concentrat- ed, congested areas of municipalities that are ob- viously using money for businesses. The problem for the average Ontario municipality is with the large rural areas – and we all have them. That’s where our focus is, to get those people the com- munication they need. Farmers, today, are doing business all over the world, and with that comes the need for communication.What we vowed was, moving forward, we would not forget about them. “In my day job as an electronics engineer at the University of Windsor, I’ve had the luxury of high- speed internet since the 1990s. One of the things that drove me when I became Mayor was to get it into town. Technology-wise, Amherstburg is a perfect example of a mixed urban/rural Ontario municipality. The urban part of town is not done too bad, but the suburban and rural parts have essentially nothing - some DSL and microwave that is extremely unreliable. Our CAO took it to n BUSINESS/COMMERCIAL TRANSACTIONS n FAMILY LAW n WILLS, TRUSTS, ESTATE PLANNING, TAXATION n REAL ESTATE, LAND DEVELOPMENT, MUNICIPAL LAW n CRIMINAL DEFENSE n LITIGATION www.mousseaulaw.com n 519-258-0615 MAIN OFFICE: Westcourt Place, Suite 500 251 Goyeau Street n Windsor, ON N9A 6V2 LAKESHORE/BELLE RIVER OFFICE: 467 Notre Dame Street n P.O. Box 279 Belle River, ON NOR 1AO l OUR PARTNERS l Proud to be legal counsel to the Town of Amherstburg www.essexpower.ca (519) 946-2002 2199 Blackacre Dr. Suite 200 Oldcastle, ON N0R 1L0 Essex Power Corporation is a dynamic energy company that provides safe, reliable and economical energy supply and services to over 28,000 customers. Proud Community Partner of the Town of Amherstburg AMHERSTBURG, ONTARIO PREFERRED VENDORS n Mousseau DeLuca McPherson Prince LLP www.mousseaulaw.com n Essex Powerlines Corp. www.essexpowerlines.ca a whole new level.We went public and said we couldn’t get anybody to do it. Then John went ahead and developed a model for the town to do it, itself, if no one else would. Not only are we getting it done now, but we’ve partnered with Bell Canada to make it reality in 18 to 24 months. Amazing! “In the past we managed to get a lot of isolated ideas done, the big difference now is we’re getting a lot more done, and everything makes sense as we pull it all together.”