Metro Optic, Crosslake Fibre and Utilities Kingston announced plans to build a new fibre-optic cable system from Montréal to Toronto.
A joint venture between Metro Optic and Crosslake Fibre, dubbed Maple Leaf Fibre Limited, will develop the project. Maple Leaf Fibre partnered with Utilities Kingston as an investor and development partner. Crosslake is based in Toronto, Ontario and Metro in Montréa, Quebec.
The fibre cable will have a terrestrial segment between Montréal, Ottawa and Kingston. Additionally, a submarine section will cross through Lake Ontario between Kingston and downtown Toronto.
Utilities Kingston intends to use the cable to enhance its current fibre-optic services.
The Maple Leaf Fibre cable system will offer a physically diverse route compared to other cable system. Additionally, Maple Leaf Fibre’s cable setup will feature a high fibre count and offer commercially available dark fibre.
Dark fibre is a network of unused fibre cable — since fibre relies on light, unused fibre is unlit and therefore is ‘dark.’ Businesses that need fast data transmission between the cities connected by the system can lease the network.
Most importantly, fibre cable along this route will offer critical performance benefits to its users.
“This is a truly exciting opportunity to develop much needed Internet Infrastructure along one of the busiest routes in Canada,” said Mike Cunningham, CEO of Crosslake, in a press statement.
“Canada is uniquely situated as a gateway for high-capacity data flow between Europe, the U.S. and Asia,” said Michael Bucheit, Metro Optic’s CEO.
“The Montréal-Toronto route is critical to reach Europe through the Maritimes, the major U.S. trading hubs of New York and Chicago to the South, and Asia to the West.”
Maple Leaf Fibre will also own and operate the system independently. Furthermore, Maple Leaf Fibre is carrier agnostic. It will offer dark fibre strands to carriers along with datacenter operators, internet service providers, government-sponsored network projects and more.
The project began development a couple months ago and should be completed during the second half of 2019.
Source: Crosslake Fibre
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