This Quebec Local and Xplore Employee is Helping Rural Quebecers get Fibre Internet

Charles Beaudet has been in the business of connecting people – to the Internet and to each other – for 30 years, and half of that work has been as a member of the Xplore family.

What interested him the most about Xplore (at that time, Barrett Xplore) was joining a growing company with big ambitions.

“The company was a start-up so there were a lot of growth opportunities. And it was providing an essential service to people that were in need. The company was on a mission to help rural communities across Canada connect to the world and that really rang a bell with me,” he said.

Charles became involved with government projects in both Xplore’s home province of New Brunswick as well as Quebec.

He and the team led town halls and he recalls some being packed community centres and church basements with people wanting to know more about the type of service Xplore was going to provide.

“It was rewarding to see that you were helping communities. I remember one meeting in Ripples, New Brunswick. We had 100 people in basement of the community centre and it was a lot of fun,” he said.

As Vice President, Business Development, Charles contributed to Xplore being a successful proponent in the Government of Quebec’s Opération Haute Vitesse project in 2021. As part of this project, Xplore will connect more than 20,000 homes and business across rural Quebec to fibre Internet.

"Working with federal and provincial governments on these large-scale projects helps us bring fibre Internet to rural communities even faster. The Haute Vitesse project in Quebec was one of the first large project we won and now we have been awarded projects in seven additional provinces across the country. We are building fibre-to-the-home networks in places where you might never have imagined. It is extremely exciting,” he said.

“So far, we have constructed around 1500 km of fibre and our fibre network is now available to around 6000 premises. By year end fibre should be available to over 9,000 premises,” he said.

Now, as Xplore’s VP of Government Relations, Charles negotiates with important officials to help get rural Canadians connected across the country.

Charles says that fibre is going to make a big difference to the residents and businesses in these communities.

“Fibre is the most efficient technology available for connecting to the Internet. Our world revolves around the Internet now. It’s even more important in remote communities because it’s your only way of communicating with the outside world,” he said.

Outside of work, Charles has acted as an honorary consul for the Netherlands for the last 10 years.

In Canada, there is a Netherlands Embassy in Ottawa that takes care of the relationship between the two countries. There are seven honorary consuls across Canada. Charles is the honorary consul in Quebec City.

“I’m there to support Dutch people that are living in my area. A year ago, a Dutch family was visiting Quebec and their passports were stolen. I helped them get temporary passports so they could go back to the Netherlands,” he said.

In this volunteer position, Charles not only gets to apply his government and business connections to help people, but through it, he builds connections that lead to success with his role at Xplore.

Charles has a personal connection to rural living. He lives full time in the rural community of Fossambault-Sur-Le-Lac, 40 kilometres from Quebec City. It’s a town of about 1,500 people, but it grows to 5,000 in the summer because there are a lot of cottages around the lake.

“I enjoy rural living because you know your neighbours and your community. And, there's always something to do,” he said.

Charles was made for lakeside living.

“I like to do water sports such as water skiing, sailing; kite skiing in the winter on the ice on the lake,” he explained.

He was even the lake’s water-skiing champion for a few years ago.

Rural Quebecers like Charles can find out if fibre is or will be available at their home or business with our Fibre Lookup tool.

We will make sure to keep you posted with any other updates from Charles and the team.

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