Residents of Behchokǫ̀ can now sign up for internet speeds that are up to 16 times faster than before thanks to a new full-fibre internet service.
Northwestel, the Yellowknife-based telecommunications service, announced on Jan. 17 the North Slave community is now connected to a full-fibre internet service with speeds of up to 250 mbps, a significant improvement on the previous speed of 15 Mbps. The new service also includes unlimited data.
“Prior to this we were, I guess, slow compared to what the South had to offer,” says Behchokǫ̀ chief Clifford Daniels. “It would lag, you’d have disruptions, and you’d have low quality videos—whatever you were watching, you wouldn’t get high-quality videos coming in.”
“We’ve been advocating for this over the years because the fiber optics used to just run along the highway beside us,” he said. “And we always used to say, ‘Why can’t we just plug in and connect to that?”
The new service is part of Northwestel’s Every Community project, which aims to improve Internet access in a region of the country plagued by unequal Internet access both compared to the rest of the country and internally between communities.
In a 2020 CRTC survey on Internet access in the North, about one third of respondents from across the three territories described their Internet service as “poor” or “very poor,” while only 36 per cent described their service as “excellent” or “good.” There was also significant disparity between large population centres like Yellowknife and smaller communities when it came to both use of services—including internet and cell phone—and satisfaction with those services.
Five other communities in the Yukon and NWT are already connected to this service: Hay River, Upper Liard, Inuvik, Dawson City and Watson Lake.
Due to the difficulties of setting up the service caused by the ongoing pandemic, only single-dwelling homes are currently eligible, with businesses and multi-dwelling homes to become eligible at a later date.
Daniels says the benefits of this new service are about more than just higher-quality videos: “We know that healthcare could be improved, students going online, businesses, employment options,” says Daniels. “Other training opportunities might be online too. So it’s going to really enhance ties, allowing local people to possibly communicate with family and people living all over the world.”