British Columbia is home to more than 650,000 kilometres of off-highway roads that are used by various resource industry stakeholders, as well as by the public, to access rural and remote areas. These roads are known as resource roads, many of which are narrow, single-lane passages that cover treacherous terrain. Many of these resource roads are assigned a communications radio channel that serves as a lifeline for users in trouble and helps to coordinate safe traffic flow.
With the growth of the resource industry, the number of these resource road channels has increased. What's more, high demand for spectrum across all industries has made it difficult to add new channels. As a result, we currently have an unwieldy patchwork of resource road channels in use, which strains spectrum efficiency and jeopardizes safety.
Working with the Province of British Columbia, representatives of the resource sector and public safety organizations, Industry Canada has developed a coordinated strategy to improve the effectiveness of radio communications on resource roads in British Columbia. Forty (40) radio channels will be dedicated for exclusive use on these roads throughout the province, thereby increasing the safety of resource sector and public users.
In total, 95 users of existing resource road channels will be asked to voluntarily move to a new channel assignment to make way for the 40 new channels. Existing users will move by the fall, allowing for more orderly and effective use of communications on resource roads. Users will only move once a replacement channel assignment has been identified that fully meets their needs in order to have minimal impact on the operation and effectiveness of radio communications.
