The rest of Port Hardy residents will soon have fibre optics by the end of this year. The northeast side of the town was awaiting fibre optics installation for nearly over a year.
Liz Sauvé, media relations representative for Telus, said “since announcing the TELUS PureFibre build, we encountered some unforeseen challenges.”
“In order to bring the fibre optic cable directly to homes and businesses in Port Hardy, we need to dig and excavate to lay the fibre, and we encountered extensive amounts of limestone and blue rock that has been very challenging to dig around, and also had some challenges locating underground city service lines that we need to carefully work around to ensure we don’t disrupt them,” she added.
Sauvé had mentioned because of these challenges the company had to halt digging for a period of time until experts were brought in, who completed penetrating radar to locate all the district’s services underground. The Telus engineering team then had to modify their project.
Sauvé also mentioned that Telus had very much appreciated “the community’s patience as (Telus) worked with engineering experts to determine the best way to work around the limestone and blue rock, as well as preserve any underground city services, all while still delivering on our promise of connecting Port Hardy to the best network technology available.”
She noted that the District of Port Hardy has worked hand in hand with Telus to ensure the challenges could be worked dealt with. Telus is “tremendously grateful for their support on this unexpectedly complex build,” she pointed out.
“While it’s difficult to provide exact timelines given the complexity of this construction work and the possibility for more extreme weather as we head into the Fall and Winter months, as of right now, we expect to connect the final 313 homes directly to the TELUS PureFibre network by the end of this year,” Sauvé concluded.
According to chief administrative officer McCarrick, there were no resident complaints made on the issue.
