Telus continues to make progress with its fiber rollout, announcing that it has completed an $11 million fiber network build connecting business and residential customers on Northern Vancouver Island.
Reaching traditional territories of the Kwakwaka'wakw Nations from the Sayward Junction to Port McNeill, the 150 km network will serve 16 cities. The network will bring broadband Internet to some of these communities for the first time, while enabling the healthcare, education, business verticals in the area to gain new capabilities.
Given the geographic diversity of Vancouver Island, Telus said the fiber build presented it with some unique challenges.
In order to complete the build, the service provider had to use specialized equipment to place the fiber cable in narrow but deep trenches within the roadbed alongside the highway. By using this process, it eliminated the need for roadside logging and reducing the visual impact for residents and visitors.
Besides making the process less intrusive for existing residents, Telus estimates this approach saved hundreds of thousands of trees, as safety regulations require trees within 50 meter of the highway be cut down if lines are strung aerially.
Telus is building a similar network for other Vancouver Island communities from Port Alberni to the Ucluelet Junction. Work on those networks will be completed by next year, the provider said.
The service provider is making similar strides in Edmonton, Alberta, a city where it is investing $813 million to connect over 90 percent of homes and businessesto its network over the next six years.
These new fiber builds are part of a broader $4 billion, three-year commitment in Canada to bring advanced services to every part of British Columbia and into Alberta province.
For more:
- see the release
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