Internet access was down Friday morning in the downtown core and Niven Lake areas.
Northwestel service technician Daryl Laureano said the problems are a result of infrastructure upgrades in the area and couldn’t say when internet access would be back up. Internet appears to have been restored in the downtown area around 10:30 a.m.
Andrew Cunningham, IT consultant with Gray Jay Enterprises Ltd., said that Kam Lake was experiencing similar issues last month.
He suspects the problems are related to Northwestel preparing for unlimited internet.
He says when he responded to his client’s problem in Kam Lake he noticed a "weird IP address" and had to change the rest of the system to match the new address.
That worked until Northwestel changed the IP address back the next day and Cunningham had to switch the rest of the system back too.
He says the problems in the downtown area seem to be similar.
He says to expect the internet to be down for 48 hours.
Laureano confirmed Northwestel is “grooming (IP) address spaces” but couldn’t say when or where exactly.
The maintenance was completed without notice and Laureanl says he is “not at liberty to discuss” if there are upgrades or infrastructure maintenance scheduled that customers could prepare for in the future.
Northwestel spokesperson Andrew Anderson said they are aware of the issue and working as fast as they can to repair it.