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Faster Internet coming to nearly 2,700 homes in northern Saskatchewan

Faster Internet coming to nearly 2,700 homes in northern Saskatchewan

August 3, 2016

Today SaskTel announced that they will be upgrading the High Speed Internet service in nearly 2,700 homes across 26 communities in northern Saskatchewan by the end of 2016. When completed, residents in those communities will be able to enjoy download speeds of up to 5 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 1 Mbps. See appendix A for a full list of communities.

“SaskTel is pleased to partner with the federal government to deliver high-speed connectivity to rural and remote communities in northern Saskatchewan” said Jim Reiter, Minister Responsible for SaskTel. “The Connecting Canadians program supports SaskTel’s goal of bringing faster broadband speeds to our northern communities in order to provide equitable access to services such as communications, education, health, electronic commerce and entertainment”.

The total cost of the project is estimated at $9.9 million and includes the upgrades in all 26 communities as well as the construction of 89 km of fibre from Cigar Lake to Collins Bay and 9 km of fibre from Dillon to St. George’s Hill.  The Federal Government’s Connecting Canadians Program is contributing $7.42 million in funding to assist in the completion of this project.

Connecting Canadians to each other and to the world is at the heart of Canada’s digital economy and the key to unlocking our tremendous economic potential. That’s why the Government of Canada is committed to increasing high-speed broadband coverage and to supporting competition, choice and availability of service. Visit canada.ca/connectingcanadians to learn more.

About SaskTel

SaskTel is the leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provider in Saskatchewan, with over $1.2 billion in annual revenue and approximately 1.4 million customer connections including over 614,000 wireless accesses, 404,000 wireline network accesses, 266,000 Internet accesses and 107,000 maxTV™ subscribers. SaskTel and its wholly-owned subsidiaries offer a wide range of ICT products and services including competitive voice, data and Internet services, wireless data services, maxTV services, data centre services, cloud-based services, security monitoring services, advertising services, and international software and consulting services. SaskTel and its wholly-owned subsidiaries have a workforce of approximately 4,000 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs). Visit SaskTel at sasktel.com.

About Connecting Canadians

The Government of Canada is committed to increasing high-speed broadband coverage for rural Canadians. Enhancing and extending access will create new employment opportunities for rural and northern Canadians by increasing their ability to participate in the digital economy. Improved broadband access will also provide households with the ability to use distance education and cloud computing applications, and it will help Canadians in rural and remote communities stay connected to friends and family members.

Through the Connecting Canadians program, the Government is contributing funding to extend and enhance broadband service to a minimum target speed of five megabits per second (Mbps) for over 300,000 Canadians households. 

For more information, please contact:

Greg Jacobs, SaskTel Manager of External Communications
Phone: 306.777.3433
Email: Greg.Jacobs@sasktel.com

 

Appendix A

Community
Bear Creek Grandmother’s Bay Stanley Mission
Black Lake Jans Bay Stony Rapids
Brabant Lake† Missinipe† Sucker River
Canoe Narrows Patuanak Turnor Lake
Clearwater River Dene Nation Red Earth Wadin Bay†
Dillon Shoal Lake Wahpeton
Dore Lake Sled Lake Waterhen Lake
Far IR Southend Wollaston Lake
Fond du Lac St. George's Hill  

These communities do not currently have SaskTel High Speed Internet