Nunavik turns to voice-video service for emergency telecom needs

KRG councillors and executive members tour Tamaani’s headquarters in Kuujjuaq last fall. Tamaani has helped to launch a new independent voice and video service that links the region’s 14 communities and the south via internet. (PHOTO COURTESY OF KRG)

Nunavik’s regional government and the region’s regional health agency have teamed up with three telecom firms to deliver emergency back-up communications for the region’s police and health care centres.

The Kativik Regional Government said Jan. 18 that it has launched a new independent voice and video service that links the region’s 14 communities and the South via internet.

The new service takes pressure off the region’s landline phone service, provided through Bell Canada, which has seen increased outages in recent years.

“The service is already in place for use by the Kativik Regional Police Force and community CLSCs [health centres] during emergency management and response situations,” said Jean-François Dumoulin, the KRG’s senior coordinator of programs and partnerships, in a Jan. 18 release.

“It uses a small amount of bandwidth that is reserved for public safety use.”

The new service is offered through the KRG-run Tamaani Internet and the Nunavik Regional Board of Health and Social Services.

The regional organizations are working with mobile network provider Ice Wireless, exchange carrier Iristel and video-voice provider Polycom to deliver the service.

In recent years, Nunavik communities have struggled with unreliable and sometimes non-existent long-distance and local telephone service provided through Bell Canada, which has no physical presence in the region.

Tamaani, the region’s main internet provider, offers network speeds of just 1.5 megabits per second, although regional organizers hope to triple that with upgrades later this year.

That’s in a region where the cost of travelling between communities and the South is high, which puts a strong emphasis on teleconferencing tools.

“Not everyone realizes how fragile communications are in the North,” said the KRG’s director general, Isabelle Parizeau.

“Up until now, we have been relying on a single satellite link for emergency telecommunications service. If this link were to be suddenly overloaded or severed, quality communications with the communities would be in jeopardy.”

But telecommunications across the region are set for a major overhaul in 2016.

The KRG will finish its contract with Telesat this year and switch to a new operator, SES, to bring Tamaani’s bandwidth up to four megabits by September.

The KRG received $26 million from both the provincial and federal governments this past July to help overhaul and maintain broadband service in the region’s 14 communities until 2021.

That upgrade will set the basic groundwork to move to 4G technology, which the KRG is also expected to deliver through Ice Wireless.

If all goes well, Nunavimmiut will be able to use smartphones and access data in each of the region’s 14 communities by next year.

Makivik Corp. is currently working to upgrade its cellular service throughout the region, using some of the same technology as Tamaani.