“Yukoners Are Pissed”: The Outcry over Telecom Failures – The Walrus

Nov. 22, 2024

Starlink’s popularity surges as Northern residents search for reliable internet

When I woke up one morning this past May, internet, cellular, and landline services had been out for about twelve hours. Local CBC radio was reporting that wildfires in northern British Columbia and the Northwest Territories had damaged the fibre-optic lines connecting the Yukon to the wider network. Some NWT communities were affected too. Here in Whitehorse, I heard that long lines stretched from downtown ATMs as debit and credit machines went down. With 911 not working, ambulances parked at central locations to provide emergency assistance if needed.

I had plans for a three-hour trail run. My partner and I debated if it was a good idea. I always take my phone as a precaution, but it would be useless. I chose to go but brought our InReach, a satellite communication device, wrote down my exact route, and told my partner to come looking if I wasn’t home in four hours. Thankfully, the run was uneventful. When I emerged from the woods, the Yukon was still offline. That afternoon, wireless internet began to return, with most of the territory fully connected by evening.

If you live in the North, you’re accustomed to laggy Zoom calls, random outages, and slow-as-molasses internet. (There are even memes about it.) In a 2022 Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission survey of Northern Canadians, 92.9 percent found telecom services too unreliable to meet their daily needs. Doctors and nurses struggle to send or receive patient results, businesses can’t process sales, and residents have trouble accessing essential services, like online banking, education, and counselling.