Arctic Fibre blows deadline
Chairman confirms project won't be completed by 2016
Karen K. Ho
Northern News Services
Saturday, June 6, 2015
NUNAVUT
The fibre-optic cable project set to span the Northwest Passage is definitely going ahead, but not anywhere in Northern Canada.
Arctic Fibre's Doug Cunningham says his fibre optic cable from Tokyo to London via the Northwest Passage will give Asian customers an advantage, and Nunavummiut will benefit. However, the executive recently told Nunavut News/North that his company won't be making the targeted completion date of December this year due to a change in plans. Instead, the company is laying down fibre in Alaska. - NNSL file photo
|
Arctic Fibre, the Canadian company contracted to build the Asia-Europe telecommunications project, confirmed to Nunavut News/North that the 15,000 km, $620 million private venture originally planned to lie along the territory's "backbone", will not make the targeted completion date of December this year.
"We're not building into Canada at this time," said chairman and chief executive officer Douglas Cunningham, adding that the company is focusing its efforts on building west in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, instead.
"We're building to Alaska first because that's where the primary market is," Cunningham described the market reception in Alaska as great and said Arctic Fibre would be building out in the Northern American state in 2015-2016.
The company originally expected to have it's $620-million backbone network online by December, but Cunningham said Arctic Fibre will now probably build in 2017/2018, stressing that date was contingent on other customer commitments being in place. "We have certain customers that we have contracted with at this time so we will go back to them in the course of this year once we commence construction on Alaska," he said. "People just assume you just build these things overnight."
The project was supposed to connect with Iqaluit, then move through Cape Dorset, Hall Beach, Igloolik, Gjoa Haven and Cambridge Bay as it made its way towards Asia.
Last year, the Nunavut Impact Review Board ruled the project did not require an environmental assessment, and filed a screening decision report outlining 52 primary terms and conditions with the federal minister on Jan. 23.
Currently, Arctic Fibre has three cable landing stations in place in Alaska, and Cunningham said the company has put horizontal drilling in six or seven locations for cable to be laid. Cunningham said an update on the work is expected to be released in about a week and a half.
