Residents in Altona are seeing a variety of small, colourful flags decorating boulevards and rights of way in parts of the community.

The flags mark the various underground utilities in town and are part of the preparatory work being done before Valley Fiber can begin laying down the cable for its high-speed Internet service.

Mayor Al Friesen says residents will probably see workers on or near their properties over the next several months ...

"That will start to happen sometime in summer and will slide into the fall and winter as well. We need to keep in mind that all of this will take time, but we can expect the digging to begin sometime in May."

Friesen says residents shouldn't be alarmed to see workers on or near their properties over the next several months.

"One of the things that was discussed was that they (Valley Fiber) have right-of-way. That's a key part of this so that they can work efficiently and safely."

Meanwhile, the Winkler tech company also plans to lay fiber cable in the Municipality of Emerson-Franklin this year.

Reeve Dave Carlson says the anticipation for solid high-speed Internet service is building.

"We've had slow Internet for a very long time, so we're pretty excited about it. We see it as critical to future economic development."

Carlson says fiber cable will be installed in Dominion City this year and in Emerson in 2020.