February 21, 2019 - Chris Armstrong - CityWest

Mr. Armstrong spoke to the club about the major project of updating to fibre optic from Prince Rupert to Houston.  Fibre optic will greatly increast capacity and will be much faster and more reliable for customers.  They will be expanding to Hazelton, Smithers, Kispiox and New Remo.  Half of Prince Rupert will be complete by year-end.  Fibre optic will support more and more of those household items that rely on wireless in the home such as alarm systems and new smart refrigerators.

They are looking to build in redundancy via a loop to Vancouver Island to Vancouver, so that if the line is interrupted between Prince Rupert and Prince George, the system will automatically switch over and there will be no loss in service, but this will still be a while in the making.