The CRTC on Monday approved on an exceptional basis a request from Northwestel Inc. to use a portion of the Broadband Fund funding previously allocated to its fibre project in Northwest Territories to rebuild a fibre-to-the-home network in the NWT community of Enterprise, which was damaged by wildfires in August 2023.
The commission has also approved a modified completion date for the project, giving Northwestel an additional year to complete it, since the rebuild is anticipated to begin in 2025.
The Enterprise network is part of a larger project approved for Broadband Fund money in August 2020, which involved the upgrading of a transport point of presence in Dettah, NWT, to provide FTTH service in Dettah and 17 other communities, including Enterprise. While the overall project was still underway at the time of the wildfires, the Enterprise portion had been completed.
In a November 2023 change request submitted to the CRTC, Northwestel asked to use Broadband Fund funding that had already been allocated to the project, but that had not yet been used, to rebuild the wildfire-damaged Enterprise network.
“In carrying out the rebuilding of the network in Enterprise, the Commission expects Northwestel to consider steps it might take to improve the resiliency of the network in ways that anticipate future environmental disasters of a similar nature, which have been increasing in frequency in recent years,” the CRTC writes in its decision approving the reallocation of the funding.
