The mayor of Clearwater says he is continuing to push for better internet service in the rural community.

It’s an issue many rural communities around Kamloops are working through.

Merlin Blackwell says there are two internet providers in his community: Telus, and Mascon, which is a subsidy of Telus.

“Mascon locally seems to be doing quite well, but Telus seems to leave a little bit to be desired on actually hitting the up to 15 megabites per second, or 20 megabits per second, download speed that they advertise. So I continue to pass that information on in hopes of making some progress there.”

Meanwhile, Trans Mountain is providing internet at its work camp in Clearwater.

“It does not solve the problem of all these workers out there in the field on coffee breaks, etcetera, or communicating for business on their cell phones,” Blackwell says.

“We’re already starting to see slowdown of services with the 300 or so [workers] that are here now. I can’t imagine if you throw another 500 people on top of that everyday.”