wiredinUSA May 2014

The Canadian Northwest Territories government hopes to use existing data, along with new studies, to help speed the proposed Mackenzie Valley fiber link project through its permit phase. The plan is to build a 1,100km fiber optic cable to supply high speed Internet between Fort Simpson and Inuvik. “The Mackenzie gas project did quite a bit of work through that area, where there isn’t a lot of information, so any information at this point in time is valuable,” says Sean Craig, an analyst overseeing the project. The hope is that sufficient work has already been done to avoid a full environmental assessment. “The highway also worked with a lot of the organizations up there and built off a lot of the work the Mackenzie gas project had put together, so a lot of that baseline data was brought forward to our project.” Installing the Mackenzie Valley fiber link will necessitate clearing a 6m wide access along existing roads and rights of way from Fort Simpson to Fort Good Hope, then traversing the Mackenzie Valley to the Dempster Highway, and along the Dempster to Inuvik. The cable would be buried in a small trench and left in place at the end of its operational life (around 25 years). The government hopes to begin construction in January 2015. Possible fast track for Canadian fiber

wiredInUSA - May 2014

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