Damage to Fibre connection to Haida Gwaii brings service interruption

CityWest continues to investigate the cause of a weekend
sub sea fibre optic outage impacting customers on Haida Gwaii

CityWest has outlined some background towards a weekend service outage for Haida Gwaii residents that as a result of damage to the subsea fibre optic line that connects the Islands with North Coast Mainland .

While not confirming the cause, CItyWest notes that unsanctioned fishing activity may have been the reason that the sub sea fibre cable came to be damaged.

The communication company currently has a backup system in operation, but it has limited capacity and service options will not include some of the CityWest features for now.

The advisory for HaidaGwaii residents was deliver through their social media stream 

The most recent update was issued at 8:45 AM today, noting that crews were onsite and were awaiting safe weather window to locate and investigate the breakage. 

There is no timeline yet to share towards any restoration of service.

Weather conditions have been rough for mariners in Hecate Strait over the last 48 hours 

While conditions have eased in the Northern portion, the Southern half of Hecate Strait is still quite stormy and currently is under a GALE WARNING

Updates on their work can be followed through the CityWest Maintenance and Outage page here.

Some of our past notes on CityWest can be reviewed here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review.