First Nations Cable said about 20 homes on the reserve have now been fired up to the long-awaited high-speed fibre optic system.
“It’s pretty exciting times now,” said First Nations Cable President Jeff Thomas. “We’re just firing things up. We’re actually starting to put customers on. We’re starting to see all the benefits of all our hard work.”
The project is years in the making, with work beginning in 2022. About 20 customers on Fourth Line were the first to connect, Thomas told Six Nations of the Grand River Elected Council last week.
Fiber optic cables provide high-speed Internet to private homes, making it suitable for streaming, gaming and reliable work-from-home internet. First Nations Cable (Six Nations Internet) has spent the past few years installing high-speed fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) infrastructure throughout the reserve to provide reliable, high-speed internet.
Thomas had been aiming for complete coverage to the reserve by late 2025 and then pushed it up to March 2026 but they still have a few fibres left to install on the reserve. There are about 1,200 to 1,500 areas left to bury cables, he said.
The community has been asking him how to get hooked up to the high-speed system and he encourages people to visit their website at sninternet.com to get an Internet package. First Nations Cable had to bury hundreds of kilometres of fibre throughout the reserve and had to approach homeowners individually for permission to install the fibres up to their homes. Thomas received $11.4 million in government funding for the project.
First Nations Cable has been serving the Six Nations of the Grand River since 1998 and has been licensed by the CRTC since 1992. Now they’re just hooking up cables to homes, said Thomas.
By running fibre into every household on Six Nations, community members will finally have high-speed home Internet, he said. The pandemic saw most of the community working and learning from home during lockdowns which presented challenges for residents with slow Internet services trying to access live meetings virtually.
“If anything like that ever happens again, we’re prepared for it,” said Thomas. “Recent times have shown us just how important Internet service is, not just for entertainment but as a crucial part of business and education. Over the years, we have continually invested in our infrastructure to improve service for our customers. We make strides in performance and reliability every day.”
