Whaletown residents on Cortes Island are facing a month-long delay to get high-speed internet, thanks to an unknown vandal.
Internet company City West has been working on the island installing fiber-optic cables as part of the Connected Coast project. On March 21, RCMP were called to investigate vandalism to the cables, which were cut in 17 places along Whaletown Road.
Scott Simpson with City West says it’s likely the vandal knew exactly what they were doing.
“The person responsible — person or persons — seemed to have a very intimate knowledge of fiber-optic networking, and specifically the City West network that was being constructed in Whaletown,” he says. “They knew where to damage the network to delay our project, and make the network inoperable.”
Police are now investigating. Simpson says there was at least $40,000 in damages done. The project will continue, but he says it will take time to replace the damaged cables.
Other communities on Cortes Island were unaffected, and will get their new services on schedule.
