Fibre optic line to wire Nass to world

A NISGA’A telecommunications company is going to install a fibre optic line up to the Nass Valley, opening the area up to the kind of high speed information access to the world that is needed to support and grow its economy. enTel has already installed 250km of fibre optic line through three communities in the Nass Valley but now needs a line south to hook up to a Telus connection to make huge amounts of broadband width available to businesses, homes, schools, health care facilities and government agencies.

News of the line was announced May 1 by former B.C. premier Mike Harcourt, the board chair of the Nisga’a Commercial Group which includes enTel as a wholly-owned subsidiary, at the biennial Nisga’a Lisims Government assembly in New Aiyansh.

“We’re going to build that line through so you can have decent internet service,” Harcourt told the assembly.

The route from the valley south to the Telus connection will take it along the existing Hwy113 roadway through the Nisga’a Lava Bed Memorial Park. The line itself will be strung on poles to be built beside the road. Harcourt told the assembly he and other directors of the Nisga’a Commercial Group gathered three provincial deputy ministers together in one room to hammer out the arrangement.

At one point, Harcourt held up his Blackberry at the assembly, saying the project means “I can use my Blackberry. I can’t use my Blackberry [in the valley right now].”

Connecting the existing service in the Nass to fibre optics with the rest of the world opens up the possibility not only of vastly increased digital communications, but cable TV and cell service. enTel itself was spun off from its previous life as an arm of the Nisga’a Lisims Government to be a free-standing, for-profit enterprise.

enTel executive Gary Patsey said the 250km of fibre line already in the valley connects major buildings in New Aiyansh, Gitwinksihlkw and Lakalzap. In the planning is another approximately 30km of line west of Lakalzap along the new road connecting the valley to the coastal village of Kincolith. Patsey said the decision to pursue fibre optics came after exhaustive research of various kinds of communications methods.

“We then realized fibre optics was the approach we need to take,” he said.

At the same time, Patsey said the Nisga’a realized it would be more cost effective for themselves if they provided as much of the service themselves.

“As such, this has become one of the foundations for economic development,” he said of enTel and its services.

The Nisga’a Valley Health Board already uses enTel to transmit diagnostic images such as x-rays and the Nisga’a School District uses enTel to connect its students to laptops they can take home. enTel also broadcast the recent special assembly on its internet site.

“Literally, the sky will be the limit when we get our own connection,” said Patsey.

He’s expecting construction should be finished by late fall. Shawn Hall from Telus said his company looks forward to building its service with enTel.

“We already provide services and have a good relationship. Connecting communities to the information economy can only be healthy, not only for the economy in general but for health care and education,” he says.

enTel will be working through the transportation ministry to get the right permits and approvals in place for line construction. Right now the environment ministry has ultimate legal responsibility for the road and its right-of-way because the route was not deleted from the park proper when the park was created in the early 1990s. The transportation ministry now takes care of the road route under a permit from the environment ministry. Legislation to take the roadway out of the park and place it under the jurisdiction of the transportation ministry was introduced in the legislature last week, said environment official Tom Bell.

“It just makes sense for that ministry pays for the road and maintains the road,” he said.