Placement of an undersea cable stretching from Bonilla Island to Haida Gwaii makes for the latest news from the Connected Coast project |
A new milestone has been reached for the Connected Coast communication project, with the arrival of the last bit of 87 kilometres of fibre optic cable stretching across the width of Hecate Strait from the North Coast to to Haida Gwaii.
The pace of that cable laying program was fairly quick as noted in an information update on Monday.
On June 29, 2022, the cable-laying ship arrived in Tlell and began laying cable across Hecate Strait toward Bonilla Island, building backbone infrastructure for high-speed connectivity in Haida Gwaii.
Network commissioning and activation activities are expected to occur over the coming months and will begin once this section of cable laying is complete.
As part of the announcement of the progress, the Province of British Columbia noted as to how the project is closing in on the half way mark for the project timeline.
The arrival of the subsea cable-laying vessel in Haida Gwaii marks the completion of fibre-optic-cable-laying activities between Haida Gwaii and the B.C. coastal mainland, and the first step toward better connectivity for Haida Gwaii residents.
Announced in 2018, the Connected Coast project will bring high-speed internet to approximately 139 rural and remote communities, including 48 First Nations communities, along the B.C. coast from north of Prince Rupert to Haida Gwaii, south to Vancouver and to Vancouver Island.
The project is approximately 45% complete with more than 500 kilometres of fibre-optic cable laid and 21 landing sites completed.
It's anticipated that the Connected Coast project will be complete by March of next year.
Among those commenting on the latest benchmark for the project were North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice and CityWest Chief Executive Officer Stefan Woloszyn
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