June 8, 2016
Nelson Fibre – Enabling High Tech Visionaries
The Ultimate Shared Utility
Nelson Fibre announced that the first three readings of the Optic Fibre Service Bylaw updates were enthusiastically approved by City Council on June 7. The fourth reading and adoption of the Bylaw took place and was passed at the Regular Council meeting on July 4th
“Feedback on the fibre utility was received and consolidated from many different sources, over the last year”, reported Allison Sutherland, Manager of Information Technology and Nelson Fibre. She added, “City staff, Council, community groups, customers and service providers – all provided input or were directly engaged in an attempt to develop the strategic plan on how the dark fibre utility should evolve. City Manager, Kevin Cormack, along with the Corporate Officer, Frances Long and Finance Officer, Colin McClure provided Nelson Fibre staff with an updated vision regarding the municipality’s Dark Fibre Utility and its serviced customers.”
As a result of the updated vision and changes to the Optic Fibre Service Bylaw, staff pursued Bylaw Changes, to both the Regulatory Bylaw and Fees Bylaw.
Highlighted Changes:
- With the emphasis on an OPEN customer choice model, new rate categories and multi-unit sharing arrangements, the bylaw changes are intended to make the service more widely accessible for Customers and provide choices for how the Customer needs to implement it. Nelson Fibre looks forward to increased adoption and visionary fibre uses by its customers, as well as interest from new service providers.
- The most significant changes surround the multi-unit tiered model, the fibre bandwidth cap and the service potential to the residential market in the downtown core.
- Two tiers of multi-unit sharing options are available intended for multi-unit buildings, where customers can choose to share. Not every customer will want or be permitted by their corporate policy to share, and therefore the option of having a private fibre connection and network is still offered, even in Multi-Unit buildings.
- Fibre bandwidth cap increased – since its inception, the Nelson Fibre Fees included a bandwidth cap of 100MB. These fibre port caps have been raised to 1Gbps and 10Gbps, to provide customers with higher capacity network and internet services.
- Residential service permitted, within the existing service area, is also being market tested, but its success will be determined by the Internet and other services offered on top of the fibre by Internet Service Providers. The potential for Live/Work spaces and condo developments to use fibre is now possible.
History of Nelson Fibre
Nelson Fibre is the municipality’s “Dark Fibre” utility, operating since 2005. Nelson Fibre currently offers broadband fibre to businesses, School District 8, Selkirk College, RDCK, provincial government offices and City of Nelson departments.
The Dark Fibre utility provides fibre optic cabling to buildings, with Nelson Hydro as an infrastructure partner, back to the municipality’s fibre operations centre. Once fibre is connected to a building, network and internet service providers “light it up” with networking equipment and add services, creating local economic benefits to these technology partners. In addition to local benefits, dark fibre offers big city services and an accompanying lifestyle, which has the potential to attract new and innovative businesses to Nelson, who generally compete in a global marketplace.
“Nelson Fibre owes much of its visionary success to Kalum Lauritzen, the City’s fibre construction supervisor, along with the original service providers, DHC Communication Inc., Columbia Wireless, Sensible Solutions Inc. and Columbia Basin Broadband Corporation” says Allison Sutherland. “All of these organizations are instrumental in customers achieving their goals”.
Media Contact:
Allison Sutherland, Manager of Information Technology and Nelson Fibre – (250) 352-8289
Ginger Lester
Administrative Clerk /Communications Coordinator
(250) 352-8234 / glester@nelson.ca
Nelson Broadband Project 