Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Fort Resolution (Oct 14/02) - Work has begun to lay a fibre optic cable to Fort Resolution.

The $360,000 project is part of a service upgrade by NorthwesTel, which has 300 customers in the community.

About a week ago, crews began to lay the cable from Buffalo Junction, 90 kilometres from Fort Resolution.

Anne Kennedy-Grainger, the public affairs director with NorthwesTel, said the company is trying to finish the project this year, weather permitting. If not, it will be completed in the spring.

Fort Resolution is currently serviced by an analog microwave radio system.

Kennedy-Grainger explained that normally such systems are upgraded to a digital signal. However, in Fort Resolution, the microwave tower is too close to the airstrip and tests showed radio traffic there might interfere with the telephone service.

"The integrity of our system might be compromised," she says. "So that's why we went with the cable."

The microwave tower in Fort Resolution will remain to service the mobile radio system.

Meanwhile, the laying of approximately 265 kilometres of fibre optic cable to Fort Smith has been completed, and work has begun on internal electronics.

Kennedy-Grainger says NorthwesTel is looking at early November to switch Fort Smith from satellite long-distance telephone service to the cable.

"But we haven't got a firm date yet," she says.

That project, which involves fibre optic cable connecting Hay River, Fort Smith and Enterprise, costs $3.9 million.

Fibre optic cable is a state-of-the-art communications link, allowing improved voice and data connections.