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Nelson Fibre Optic Utility
Nelson Fibre is a municipality owned "dark fibre" utility, governed by city council approved Bylaws. The Fees Bylaw (Schedule J) and the Optical Fibre (regulatory Bylaw) are the governing documents for the fibre utility.
The dark fibre service must be applied for and submitted applications are approved by the Corporate Officer. Applications can be submitted by Service Providers on behalf of their customers, or fibre strands can be directly applied for by various types of customers, including education, commercial and non-profit organizations.
Local service providers partner with the fibre utility and end-users, to light it up and enable the fibre optic network for Internet, Network and Business services.
Nelson's (dark) Fibre infrastructure is managed by the Information Technology Department at the City of Nelson.
Phase 1 - Network Costs Savings
Between 1998 and 2005 the city had the insight to connect Nelson Fire Rescue, Nelson Police, Touchstones museum, public works, Nelson Hydro, Nelson Public Library, and city hall, with fibre optics. This enabled the centralization of the phone systems, servers, and internet access, resulting in cost savings for connecting our city departments.
Phase 2 - Secure Anchor Tenants
In 2012, the Regional District partnered with the city of Nelson to run new fibre optic cable connecting their Lakeside offices with the community complex and city hall. The RDCK now saves substantially on communications costs and both parties benefit by sharing services such as GIS and communications.
In 2014, the city of Nelson and the Province of BC partnered to connect all of the schools and Selkirk College facilities over the fibre optic network. This opportunity allowed the fibre optic network to expand into Rosemont, Fairview, and Uphill. These educational sites can now benefit from speeds up to 10GB per second, to help provide learning tools to students and teachers within Nelson.
Phase 3 - Share with Local Organizations
When Nelson Hydro migrated their downtown primary overhead distribution power lines to underground, the city took the opportunity to install additional communications conduit. These conduits now provide downtown businesses the opportunity to connect to Nelson Fibre.
In 2015, the city started to provide the benefits of fibre optic technology to the local business community. Although the city has residential rates for potential downtown residents, the city has no current financial plans, or service providers, to deliver municipal fibre to residential neighbourhoods in Nelson. The target customer emphasis remains the business community, non-profit associations and strategic partners.
In July 2019, the city reduced its fibre lease rates significantly, to ensure that the dark fibre utility, along with its Internet Service Providers, can offer this fibre connectivity to more customers.
Email nelsonfibre@nelson.ca to inquire or proceed with a completed Nelson Fibre or CoLocation application.