• The route will run along Winnipeg Street from 13th Avenue to 5th Avenue and create a second connection for Northern Health
  • Revenue from municipal fibre rentals will fund the project as hospital tower construction is expected to sever an existing link

The fact

Prince George City Council has unanimously approved a C$400,000 capital project to install a new fibre-optic route for Northern Health, the health authority serving northern British Columbia. The cable will run along Winnipeg Street from 13th Avenue to 5th Avenue and become part of the city's underground fibre network.

Northern Health told the city that an existing connection will be severed when construction begins on the University Hospital of Northern British Columbia patient-care tower. It plans to restore that connection at its own cost and has requested a second connection through the municipal network. Construction on the 11-storey tower is expected to begin in fall 2026.

The city leases fibre connections to other public organisations and places the revenue in a dedicated reserve for network expansion. Finance and IT director Kris Dalio said the reserve has enough money to cover the new route.

The assessment

The hospital project has created a deadline for the fibre work. Before construction reaches the existing Northern Health connection, the city and health authority need to coordinate the new municipal route with restoration of the affected link.

For the city's portion of the work, funding is already identified. Revenue from organisations using the municipal fibre network will pay for the additional connection, while Northern Health will cover the restoration of its existing link. The immediate execution issue is therefore timing: when the new route becomes operational relative to the hospital construction programme.

For BTW readers, the project shows how a major construction programme can force changes to supporting digital infrastructure before building work begins. The reporting does not establish whether the two connections follow physically separate paths, so it would be premature to describe the new link as full network redundancy.

What to watch

Construction on the care tower is expected to begin in fall 2026. The main milestone is whether the new fibre route is installed and activated before work reaches the existing connection. Northern Health's restoration timetable will show how the two routes are sequenced. Any disclosure on physical route separation would clarify whether the second connection also provides route diversity.