Between midnight and 6am on Wednesday, Northwestel services are set to drop out for at least a few hours in Yellowknife and beyond.
The company says “planned network maintenance” means a disruption of up to four hours somewhere within that six-hour window.
In Yellowknife, customers can expect their phone calls (landline and cell), 911 service and DSL internet to go down. Fibre internet and TV should remain active.
In Hay River and the Fort Smith area, long-distance calling and 911 are expected to be disrupted.
Northwestel needs the time to “upgrade older-generation equipment to newer, more reliable, and more energy-efficient equipment,” the company stated in a Monday news release. The information was initially posted last Friday to a Northwestel Facebook page with around 800 followers.
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The anticipated outage has some significant consequences.
In Yellowknife, for example, healthcare workers said the risk of communications not working means on-call staff will be required to stay the night at Stanton Territorial Hospital. One worker, requesting anonymity to discuss details of their employment, said some 10 to 15 staff would be affected.
The City of Yellowknife’s own backup emergency line is set to be affected at the same time as 911, complicating the matter.
“Residents are advised that if emergency services are required and regular phone lines are not working, they should go directly to the Fire Hall, RCMP Detachment, or Stanton Territorial Hospital for assistance,” the city stated on Tuesday morning.
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The NWT government said RCMP officers will be “actively patrolling” the city during the outage, and an emergency phone will be available outside the Yellowknife detachment.
Outside Yellowknife, you are similarly told to head to your local detachment if 911 is unavailable.
“In the event of a health emergency, if you are unable to reach your local health clinic or hospital by phone, go in person for any urgent needs,” the territory stated.
Northwestel said it was “working closely with our territorial government partners and RCMP so they are prepared to support you during the planned telecommunications disruption.”
