British Columbia-based telecoms company CityWest has outlined plans to construct a new fiber route along Highway 37.

The company highlighted recent outages in the area as part of the reasoning behind the new route, as CityWest aims to bolster network resiliency.

An outage earlier this month in Alberta, caused by a fiber cut, led to disruption for CityWest customers. At the time, CityWest told DCD that it was "advancing a new fiber transport route along Highway 37 that will create an additional pathway into Northern B.C."

A fortnight later, the company has officially confirmed plans to build the route, noting that its new build, dubbed the Northern Resiliency project, will establish a new, physically separate telecommunications path through Northern B.C., "giving network traffic another way to move when infrastructure elsewhere is damaged or disrupted."

Once the route is live, it will allow traffic to be redirected north along Highway 37 when another major fiber path is unavailable.

"Reliability is at the center of every decision we make. From network design to ongoing maintenance, our goal is to deliver service customers can depend on every day," said Wes Eisses, chief operating officer of CityWest.

CityWest noted that it couldn't publicly disclose further details about specific network routes, architecture, or infrastructure configurations.

The company did reveal that the new infrastructure will be installed underground, making it less visible and less exposed to risks such as theft, wildfire, vehicle collisions, and wildlife damage.

According to CityWest, equipment sites along the route will also include redundant power systems designed to maintain operations during extended power outages.

At present, there is no fiber-optic telecoms route extending north toward the Yukon along Highway 37.

"The project will establish a new corridor separate from existing telecommunications infrastructure along Highway 16, reducing the region's reliance on a limited number of geographic pathways," said the company.

CityWest is working with Tahltan Nation Development Corporation (TNDC) to carry out the build.

CityWest will own and operate the fiber infrastructure, with funding support from the CRTC Broadband Fund.

The Highway 37 route will also be available to other telecommunications carriers and is set to be operational by the end of 2027.