Technology

Competition heats up to build Canada’s first Arctic fibre line, as Inuit want in

Senator Dennis Patterson

High-speed fibre-optic internet could finally be coming to Nunavut, with two groups now competing to run subsea cables through the Arctic archipelago…

‘Fibre is Nunavut’s railroad’: Senator boosts new pitch for Pan-Arctic fibre optic cable to bring decent Internet to the north

Senator Dennis Patterson

Their goal is to build a pan-Arctic telecom backbone, ideally using undersea fibre optic cable networks and/or land-based microwave tower networks, and sell wholesale access to it to telecoms. This would end the reliance on expensive satellite networks that companies and the government have poured millions into, but comes with an upfront cost of between $600 million and $1 billion.

The investment would boost Nunavut’s GDP by an estimated $15 million to $50 million annually, according to reports from the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency and the Nunavut Broadband Development Corp…