NEOnet downloads innovation award: non-profit web-spreader recognized for technology development model.

• Author: Larmour, Adelle
• Position: TIMMINS - North Eastern Ontario Communications Network Inc. receives Ontario Association of Community Futures Corporations Award

By summer 2006, 40 of 60 northeastern communities will be hooked up to high-speed wireless Internet services, says Maggie Matear, director of operations of the award winning North Eastern Ontario Communications Network Inc. (NEOnet).

Since its inception in 1999, the small non-profit organization has, with its staff of five, brought $83 million in telecommunications investment to the Cochrane and Timiskaming Districts.

"We've managed to attract about $23 million in provincial and federal funding," says Matear, "and partners we've used to leverage that funding have put another $60 million in."

More good news for the organization came in June at the provincial Community Futures Corporations conference in Timmins. NEOnet won the Ontario Association of Community Futures Corporations Award for Innovation Technology in recognition of their technology development model.

NEOnet's most recent undertaking is the Cochrane broadband infrastructure project, which is funded by Industry Canada's Broadband for Regional and Northern Development (BRAND) and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation (NOHFC). Virginiatown, Swastika and Larder Lake will be the first three of 22 communities to have high-speed Internet access by the end of July, Matear says. Others will follow suit until the completion date in May 2006.

NEOnet is also working on four new cellular towers presently under construction. They will be active by the end of August, providing an additional 540 kilometres of coverage along remote highways in northeastern Ontario.

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