NORTH FIGHTS FOR CONNECTION
Federal officials have not responded to the request for changes to the Building Canada Fund from Inuvialuit Regional Corp., Makivik Corp., Kitikmeok Inuit Association, Qikiqtani Inuit Association, Nunatsiavut Government and Nunavut Tunngavik Inc.
But Adamee Itorcheak, a serial entrepreneur who started the first Internet service provider in Nunavut by reselling a dial-up connection, isn’t sold on throwing all the government funding into one megaproject.
Driving around his hometown in his pickup truck after dropping in on Senator Patterson, Itorcheak, whose grandparents and parents were among the last Inuit to give up their nomadic life, points at government projects that are overbudget or lacked foresight.
There’s no shortage of examples: The new airport (the biggest project in Nunavut) will likely cost millions more than its $300-million budget; a $90-million port that is supposed to encourage tourism is being built beside the dump, and a municipal pool is nearly $15 million over its $26-million budget.
But Itorcheak, who currently works in aviation logistics and tourism, still believes fibre, or at least a modern Internet connection, is essential for Inuit communities.
“Telecom should be right up there with housing and schooling,” he said.
Proper planning is the key, he said, adding he’s skeptical of relying solely on fibre because the network still wouldn’t have a backup if something went wrong.
“We can’t get rid of satellite no matter how much we’d like.”
Previous plans to build a fibre cable have resulted in disappointment.
A plan by Toronto-based Arctic Fibre to connect seven Nunavut communities without any government money has been pushed into the future after an Alaskan company, Quintillion Subsea Holdings LLC, bought the company this year.
Quintillion said in May it still intends to build a cable through the Canadian Arctic, but that is the third phase of a project that will first build a cable around Alaska and then one from Alaska to Japan. Arctic Fibre planned to sell wholesale access to telecoms on its fibre line.
But hope springs eternal in the North.
Itorcheak’s next stop is Tony Rose’s office, a prefab building propped up on 50-gallon oil barrels to protect against permafrost. Rose is Iqaluit’s go-to IT guy. He’s worked on every connection in town and knows all the tricks to help businesses avoid blowing their minuscule data caps, a sin that comes with massive overage charges.
He also knows how a fibre connection, much like the one in Greenland, would help people engage in the information economy.
“Fibre is Nunavut’s railroad,” Rose said. He sees a day when people don’t have to worry about bandwidth, which has inched upwards in Nunavut while growing exponentially in the South.
Despite vigilantly monitoring his usage, Rose regularly blows his own data cap when apps update in the background, resulting in average monthly Internet bills of $300.
Rose suspects the existing incumbent telecom providers would happily keep relying on “deadly slow” satellite and the overage charges it comes with, but he believes fibre would bring down the level of remoteness and help build the nation.
“We don’t have an easy way to do it," he said. "It doesn’t make the need any less.”
Telecom should be right up there with housing and schooling ... We can’t get rid of satellite no matter how much we’d like.