Savings trickle down the line
Northwestel says fibre link will cut costs for consumers starting in December
April Hudson
Northern News Services
Thursday, December 15, 2016
DEH CHO
As the southern section of the Mackenzie Valley fibre optic line comes into operation, Northwestel says the line will translate into direct savings for customers starting this month.
During the summer of 2015, Rohl Enterprises was responsible fro laying down the fibre optic line for the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link. Now, the southern section of that line is operational. - NNSL file photo
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On Dec. 6, the territorial government announced an agreement with Northern Lights General Partnership, which includes the GNWT, Northwestel and Ledcor, which has overseen construction of the line, for high-speed services to Mackenzie Valley communities.
In the Deh Cho, that includes Fort Simpson and Wrigley, the latter of which will see its Internet speeds increase by 300 per cent.
Andrew Anderson, director of communications for Northwestel, said most customers in Fort Simpson can expect to see a $7 savings on average to their bills, as long as they aren't on Northwestel's one megabyte-per-second package.
"There's some savings . with bringing the Internet and other broadband services over fibre, as opposed to how it was done before, which was a microwave tower network," Anderson said.
"We're passing those (savings) on to our customers."
Anderson said most of Northwestel's customers are on two or five megabyte-per-second packages.
The opening of the southern section of the line means Northwestel can now provide these speeds to Wrigley, Tulita and Fort Good Hope has been increased to 15 megabytes per second.
That has enabled Northwestel to introduce a new Internet package for consumers, offering their top speed and 200 gigabytes of usage for residential users.
That's up from the 125 gigabytes users could get previously.
"Each community along the Mackenzie River will see benefits coming out of this line," Anderson said.
Customers won't be automatically switched over to the higher speeds, though. Anderson said while the new, higher-speed package is available, customers on other packages will stay there unless they want to upgrade. They'll still see the average $7 reduction on their bill.
While savings will be seen in Fort Simpson, Anderson said a higher-speed package with 15 megabytes-per-second is already available in the community.
"We were able to do that (upgrade) because we knew the fibre line was coming," Anderson explained.
"Unlike the other communities, (Fort Simpson) won't see that jump to 15 megabytes-per-second this week. They got it earlier."
