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wiredInUSA - May 2014
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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