Update: Just spoke to a contact at TELUS, and here’s the latest on the outage:
Fort St John won’t be affected. Only a few rural areas outside of that community will be affected, so around a few 100 people. The outage is expected to last just a couple of hours but we want to give a longer window just in case. We’re in constant communication with emergency personnel to ensure all preparations are taken. We are doing this work on network upgrades which in the end will help TELUS better serve these communities needs.
Starting February 8th at 11PM, and running through February 9th at 6AM, TELUS will have a scheduled outage to allow for some network upgrades. Now don’t panic, this is only for select areas out west, including Fort St. John, Charlie Lake and Cecil Lake… Plus, any of the following area codes: 261, 262, 263, 264, 785, 787 and 794.
Folks in said locations can expect outages in their cell AND landline during the time period mentioned above. This has caused some major concerns in the area, as the downtime will mean absolutely no service for folks in the area, including 911 calls. Emergency operations and personnel in the area are working towards preparedness for the scheduled downtime.
From what I’ve read thus far, it sounds like folks in the area are none too impressed.