Plenty of Yellowknifers have been getting emails and phone messages lately warning them of Northwestel maintenance work that may cause outages up to an hour long.
Now, the telecoms company says there’s more to it than the simple notices suggest.
The warnings have given the impression that the whole city is liable to lose TV, home phone and internet access for 60 minutes at a time during various windows.
In fact, Northwestel told Cabin Radio on Tuesday, the work is “limited in scope, typically affecting individual streets or portions of a neighbourhood” each time.
The company says more of these interruptions will occur in the coming months as part of a $3-million network upgrade designed to more than double Yellowknife’s internet capacity and improve quality. But each one should only affect 200 customers or fewer as the company goes street by street, a spokesperson said.
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“We expect this phase of the project to be completed by year-end, with the final stage of the upgrade scheduled for next year,” the company stated.
“We appreciate customers’ patience as we complete these important improvements.”
