TELUS commissions 125-km submarine fibre to strengthen North Shore connectivity

TELUS has activated a new subsea fibre connection that runs approximately 125 kilometres between Sept-Îles and Sainte-Anne-des-Monts, offering an alternate path to the existing terrestrial route along Route 138. Deployed and buried in late 2025, the link is designed to carry large volumes of traffic with low latency and to serve as an emergency back-up should the land-based network fail. The build was funded in partnership with the federal government through a co-investment exceeding $20 million, reflecting a shared priority on durable connectivity for remote coastal communities. Project planners emphasized longevity and physical redundancy as core design objectives, positioning the cable as part of a broader diverse-route strategy for the region. Environmental mitigation was integrated into operations: the installation team used a detection approach that fuses thermal imaging, automated analytics and human oversight — an approach not previously reported at scale in Canada — and committed to shoreline restoration work in the following seasons. Operational benefits will be felt across public services that rely on steady links, including remote healthcare, education delivery and emergency communications, reducing the risk that climate-driven or infrastructure failures will isolate communities. Technically, subsea burial increases protection from surface hazards but does not eliminate all risks; long-term resilience depends on route diversity, monitoring and rapid repair capabilities. The project establishes a practical template for combining infrastructure expansion with targeted environmental safeguards, which could influence procurement and permitting practices for future coastal builds. From a policy perspective, the joint funding and public statements underline an appetite for coordinated investment in digital lifelines for less-connected regions. Economically, enhanced bandwidth and reliability can lower barriers for local businesses and public institutions to adopt cloud and telehealth services, though measurable uptake will depend on complementary last-mile investments. The initiative is a concrete step toward reducing single-point-of-failure exposure in eastern Quebec, yet it should be assessed as one element in a multi-layered resilience strategy rather than a standalone solution.