Rogers announced Wednesday it has completed a $10-million project using an undersea fibre line to connect the Southern Gulf Islands to mainland British Columbia, enabling it to deliver Xfinity internet service to 3,000 homes and businesses on Pender, Mayne and Galiano Islands.
“We are committed to bringing the best communications and entertainment experiences to customers across the country,” Bret Leech, Rogers’s president of residential, said in a press release. “Now residents on the Southern Gulf Islands can use Rogers Xfinity, Canada’s most reliable internet, to stream, make video calls and more.”
Customers on the three islands, located off Vancouver Island, can now get download speeds up to 2 Gbps, a substantial jump from the previously available 25 Mbps download speeds, according to Rogers’s press release.
“We continually invest in our networks to bring Canadians fast, reliable service,” said Mark Kennedy, Rogers’s chief technology officer, in a statement. “This was a unique build to connect these communities with a fibre line. Our team of 40 spent over 12,000 hours on the project, supported by five vessels.”
The project involved laying nearly eight kilometres of submersible fibre cable along the ocean floor, done without impacting the local environment, according to Rogers. The cableco said the new fibre infrastructure brings resiliency to an area prone to unpredictable weather conditions impacting hydro and service reliability.
“With cable links now permanently corded to the ocean floor, impacts to service from changing weather conditions is greatly reduced,” Rogers’s press release said.
Over the last 20 years, Rogers has invested nearly $70 billion in its networks across the country and continues to invest to deliver enhanced reliability and multi-gigabit-per-second speeds to almost eight million homes this year, Rogers said.
Image courtesy of Rogers
