For 11 long years, Linda Doughty kept in touch with relatives abroad the old-fashioned way — by snail mail.

Conventional Internet service — something whose cost Canadians love to complain about — was simply something the London woman couldn’t afford.

But for the last two weeks, Doughty has had a taste of what she’s been missing.

She now has a cut-rate, high-speed service, priced at just shy of $10 a month. It’s something that’s changed her life in ways many who take the Internet for granted can’t imagine.

“It’s like getting my life back after so many years,” Doughty said Thursday. “There is a lot to catch up on, and I’m enjoying every minute of it.”

She’s not alone.

Telecom giant Rogers Communications is partnering with the public housing authority in the London area, the London and Middlesex Housing Corp., one of the area’s largest landlords, to provide the more affordable Internet service to low-income tenants.

In one of the most wired countries on the planet, where household and personal data plans are the norm, the idea that basic Internet service can be a game-changer might be a shock to many.

For Doughty, it’s plugged her into instant communications with her relatives in England and Ireland, the people she used to write by hand until recently.

“It was like I was in a time capsule,” she said. “And then, finally seeing the world in a whole different light. I couldn’t believe how technology has changed.”

Another tenant at the authority’s Walnut Street building in London, Mike Burgess, is also getting accustomed to the digital world that’s now been around for more than a generation.

“It’s been great, I’m touching base with family,” he said.

A music buff, Burgess has especially enjoyed tapping into the offerings on YouTube.

“I’m also doing a lot of research on YouTube. I like the old rock and roll music and seeing their music videos is just amazing,” he said.

With the Internet rolled out to Ontario schools in the late 1990s, and digital access a must-have in virtually every workplace, it’s no surprise Canada’s federal regulator last year declared broadband connectivity a basic telecommunications service.

But Rogers notes that while a 2015 study found all but a fraction of Canadians have home Internet access, that drops to 70 per cent in households with incomes under $25,000.

Without that connectivity, everything from communicating with your child’s school to laying your hands on basic information and entertainment wanted on demand, can be tough.

“Having easy and affordable access to the Internet is essential in 2017,” London Mayor Matt Brown said at Thursday’s launch of the program.

Tenants of the housing authority received letters about the program in the mail and are able to sign up for it without committing to any contract.

Rogers and the housing authority hope to connect about 3,200 area households to the Internet, part of the telecom’s goal under the program launched in 2013 to bridge the digital divide for up to 150,000 households in Ontario, New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

Internet access is “absolutely vital,” Peter King of Rogers said in a statement, noting it’s crucial for everything from banking, to making medical appointments to signing kids up for after-school programs.

With that access, said Michael Buzzelli, the authority’s board chairperson, many tenants will be able to do what they couldn’t before — apply for jobs online, for example, or do school home work online.

Doughty said she was “stunned” when she got her letter in the mail and had to “read it a few times to let the offer sink in.”

She “made the call” and hasn’t looked back.

“This offer made it possible for me to finally have my family back,” she said, adding “I’d never thought in a million years that I’d be able to do this again. It’s very overwhelming, to say the least.”