Northwestel recognizes the frustration experienced by its customer as a result of the recent service disruptions. In order to continue to provide quality service to its customers, Northwestel is expanding its fibre network across the north and increasing capacity to the south. This expansion will enable Northwestel to redirect traffic in the event of fibre damage in British Columbia or Alberta.

 

With two major projects completed and two well under way, Northwestel is making progress in its efforts to expand the capacity of its fibre network and establish alternate routing for traffic across the North.

 

“Since we completed our initial fibre connection last summer, we’ve continued to work on a number of expansion projects,” said Paul Flaherty, President and CEO of Northwestel. “By creating redundancy on fibre optic cable lines, Northwestel will have the ability to reduce the impact of damaged fibre lines both inside and outside our operating area. We strive to offer our customers reliable service and are expanding our fibre network to better meet our customers’ needs.”

 

Most significantly, Northwestel has begun construction of a new $7 million fibre optic cable from Fort Nelson to Hay River that, when completed in 2011, will allow all of the Yukon telecommunications traffic to bypass any damaged facilities in Alberta or British Columbia. Northwestel has accelerated its efforts on this project and plans to have it completed for the summer of 2011.

 

This summer, Northwestel increased capacity on its microwave radio system from Fort Nelson to Hay River to double the amount of traffic this route can carry. This increase has better prepared our network to function in the event of a damaged fibre cable. While this capacity is not sufficient to carry all of the Yukon traffic, it does allow us to route Internet and Wireless traffic around any damaged fibre cable in northern Alberta or northern British Columbia.

 

During the disruptions last week, Northwestel worked with Bell to prioritize wireless communications and route them through the Northwest Territories to allow these services to continue to function during this past outage. 

 

Last year, fibre damage such as we have seen in the past 10 days would have resulted in a loss of service. Our recent capacity increases allowed us to continue to offer Internet and Wireless service, though Internet speeds were reduced.

 

Once the new fibre installation is completed in 2011, alternate routing will be available for all services should disruptions occur in Alberta or British Columbia. The remaining challenge will be to find alternatives for any fibre cuts that occur within the Yukon.   The costs of such a project could be well in excess of $20 million and Northwestel continues to discuss options with various levels of government to seek assistance in funding such a project. In the interim, we encourage anyone working along highways in the Yukon to call Northwestel before they dig.

 

Northwestel provides complete telecommunications solutions and entertainment services in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon, northern British Columbia and High Level, Alberta. The company’s operations span nearly 4 million square kilometres of the most remote and rugged areas of Canada.

 

For more information contact:

 

Sunny Patch

Corporate Communications Manager

(867) 455-4245

 

Or visit our website at www.nwtel.ca.