Summer telecommunication outages cost Yellowknife economy $10M, says chamber

Two telecommunications outages in Yellowknife over the summer have cost the local economy close to $10 million, estimates the Yellowknife Chamber of Commerce.

The outageson July 13 and Aug. 12lasted between seven and 10 hours. Both incidents causedinternet, TVand phone service disruptions in much of Yellowknife and surrounding communities.

Deneen Everett, the chamber's executive director, said without internetservice, many businesses couldn't accept debit or credit cards,and some were forced tocloseearly.

Everett said sheheard one restaurant in Yellowknifehad to give away two free meals because of thedisruption in August.

"There were no ATMs that worked nearby and they actually had to let their customers go they had no way to pay," she said.

The chamber estimates a one-day telecommunications outage inYellowknife results in a gross domestic product (GDP) loss of $4.75 million.

"Given that we have two outages this year we're looking at almost $10 million in financial impact," Everett said.

Both disruptions were caused by damage to a fibre optic cable. RCMP are investigating the cases as potential acts ofvandalism, but are still looking into whether the incidents are connected.

Chamber pushes outages as election issue

Northwestel has said a majority of the fibre optic cable running into the territory is protected by a redundant loop, or a secondary fibre path, although there is no redundant line in the single fibre optic cable that runs from Fort Providence, N.W.T.,to Yellowknife.

The chamber is hoping to make internetoutages a talking point in this fall's territorial election. The issue isincluded in its five-point platformfor candidates running in Yellowknife.

• Who's running in the 2019 N.W.T. election?

Internet access is a "core issue" for Yellowknife businesses, said the chamber. Itwants the territorial government to work with Northwestel to build a second fibre path into Yellowknife by Dec. 31, 2021.

Everett said the chamber wants the territorial government to earmark $1.5 million in the 2020 budget to get the project started. It also wants the government to work with Northwestel to find an estimated $20 million in federal funding to build the fibre line.