Skeena MLA demands telecom resilience after northern outages

telecommunications outage copper cable theft Northwest British Columbia infrastructure resilience CityWest

Skeena MLA Claire Rattée is demanding answers from the British Columbia government regarding the reliability of telecommunications infrastructure in Northwest B.C. The request follows a series of outages that have disrupted internet, television, and phone services across northern communities.

An outage on August 11 affected CityWest customers from Prince George to Haida Gwaii. CityWest attributed the disruption to an attempted copper theft that damaged a fibre line on a third-party network in Alberta. The company noted that its secondary route between Prince George and Vancouver was also compromised by nearby wildfire activity, hindering rerouting efforts. Rogers also reported outages in the region caused by a cut to a third-party fibre optic line.

This incident marks the third theft-related telecommunications outage in northern communities this year, with previous disruptions occurring in May and on August 2. Rattée has expressed concerns regarding the region’s dependence on limited telecommunications routes and has questioned the availability of redundancy measures to prevent future service failures.

Entities

CityWest · Claire Rattée · Diana Gibson · Rogers · TELUS

Claims

What the coverage asserts, and how many sources carry each claim.

[● 3 SOURCES] Wildfire activity affected the secondary route between Prince George and Vancouver during the August 11 outage. northernsentinel.com · haidagwaiiobserver.com · houston-today.com
[● 3 SOURCES] Rogers reported outages north and south of Prince George due to a cut to a third-party fibre optic line. northernsentinel.com · haidagwaiiobserver.com · houston-today.com
[● 3 SOURCES] The August 11 disruption was the third theft-related telecommunications outage in northern communities this year. northernsentinel.com · haidagwaiiobserver.com · houston-today.com
[● 3 SOURCES] An attempted copper theft damaged a fibre line on a third-party carrier’s network in Alberta, causing an August 11 outage. northernsentinel.com · haidagwaiiobserver.com · houston-today.com
[● 3 SOURCES] Skeena MLA Claire Rattée wrote to Citizens’ Services Minister Diana Gibson regarding telecommunications reliability. northernsentinel.com · haidagwaiiobserver.com · houston-today.com
[● 3 SOURCES] Previous theft-related outages occurred in May and on August 2. northernsentinel.com · haidagwaiiobserver.com · houston-today.com

Sources

Skeena MLA presses province on telecom resilience after third theft-related northern outage - Fort St. James Caledonia Courier [caledoniacourier.com]

about 2 months ago

Skeena MLA presses province on telecom resilience after third theft-related northern outage - Northern Sentinel [northernsentinel.com]

about 2 months ago

Skeena MLA presses province on telecom resilience after third theft-related northern outage - Haida Gwaii Observer [haidagwaiiobserver.com]

about 2 months ago

Skeena MLA presses province on telecom resilience after third theft-related northern outage - The Interior News [interior-news.com]

about 2 months ago

Skeena MLA presses province on telecom resilience after third theft-related northern outage - Terrace Standard [terracestandard.com]

about 2 months ago

Skeena MLA presses province on telecom resilience after third theft-related northern outage - Houston Today [houston-today.com]

about 2 months ago