The District of Tumbler Ridge needs your help as we work towards delivering high speed internet services throughout the town!

With current provincial and federal data indicating that the majority of Tumbler Ridge is sufficiently well served with 50/10 mbps, which deems us ineligible for the Rural Broadband Fund grant, it is up to us to prove that their data is inaccurate.

The District, in partnership with the provincial Ministry of Citizen Services, the University of Northern BC and the Union of BC Municipalities is working to determine internet speeds in all areas of our community. With your valuable help, we hope to collect data from every street in Tumbler Ridge so that we can present a solid case that the official data is not correct. This will open up funding channels to help us deliver high speed internet services to our commercial and residential areas – and potentially identify opportunities to extend services to our industrial areas too. With improved internet access, Tumbler Ridge will be much better placed to attract new investment, residents and businesses as well as improve home connectivity and medical services.

Update as of June 27, 2021:
A preliminary analysis of the CIRA tests performed in Tumbler Ridge between January 1, 2020 and June 27, 2021 has been done. Unfortunately our numbers are still very low, with only 3.13% current % unique IP relative to dwellings. This is the key metric. It shows the unique locations divided by the total households in the locale that have taken the test in the time frame as a percentage. The target is 20% or higher. The higher that percentage, the better and more robust the data set. The best data comes from the broadest cross-section of locations in the locale but multiple tests from the same location are also helpful as it generates an average speed.

Feedback has highlighted two items that might cause challenges when completing the CIRA Internet Performance Test:

Postal code: CIRA will not accept postal codes that contain the letter “O”. Where a postal code includes the number zero, it must be input as the numeric character “0”, not the alphabet character “O”.

Location pin: based on the postal code, the form will auto-locate a pin on the map, to indicate the general location from which the test is being done. Before starting the test, the user should check the location of the pin, and if necessary, drag the pin to mark the correct location of their residence or office on the map. Note that those using a cell phone to do the CIRA Internet Performance Test may not be able to drag the location pin.

Data will continue to be collected and we strongly encourage residents, businesses, and other organizations to complete the CIRA Internet Performance Test prior to August 15, 2021.

Please visit https://performance.cira.ca/ to complete the test.

To view a video about how the test works visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCNg5r5H9AM