PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. — Municipally owned telecom company CityWest and the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) announced last week Baylink Networks has been selected as the prime contractor for designing and building the long-awaited Connected Coast project (which we wrote about recently).
Based in Port Coquitlam, B.C., Baylink Networks specializes in providing turnkey undersea networks. The Connected Coast project will connect communities to a subsea fibre-optic network that will run from Prince Rupert to Haida Gwaii, down the Sunshine Coast, and around Vancouver Island. The cable will provide 159 landings at rural and remote coastal communities, including 48 Indigenous communities representing 44 First Nations, with the opportunity to connect to high-speed Internet, reads the press release.
“With this announcement, we’re taking an exciting next step towards getting fibre in the water and bringing high speed connectivity to communities along coastal British Columbia,” said Stefan Woloszyn, CEO of CityWest, in a press release. “Baylink’s proposal was strong, and the company has the capacity and experience to build Canada’s largest undersea fibre optic network.”
“We’re excited to be part of the Connected Coast project, connecting remote coastal communities of British Columbia with high-speed internet,” added Darren Dofher, CEO of Baylink Networks. “We look forward to seeing what economies will develop in these communities with state-of-the-art infrastructure and limitless bandwidth. We would like to thank the extended team that worked diligently to get the project underway.”
According to CityWest’s press release, the Connected Coast project is anticipated to be completed by the end of 2023.
The project has been made possible by the federal government’s Connect to Innovate program, Indigenous Services Canada, and the province of B.C. through the Connecting British Columbia program administered by Northern Development Initiative Trust.
For more information about the Connected Coast project, please visit www.connectedcoast.ca.
(Photo borrowed from the Connected Coast website.)
