Released on September 23, 2020
SaskTel is today announcing plans to increase its investment in the Government of Saskatchewan’s Wireless Saskatchewan initiative by more than $70 million. As part of this additional investment, SaskTel plans to build 74 new macro cell towers in underserved rural and resort communities by early Summer 2021. This brings the total investment in rural connectivity over the last three years to more than $107 million.
“In 2017 our government launched the Wireless Saskatchewan initiative which has provided nearly 200 new towers in rural areas,” Minister Responsible for SaskTel Don Morgan said. “It is a top priority to enhance access to communications services in rural Saskatchewan. While these 74 towers will be the final phase of this initiative, we will continue to work with SaskTel and our rural stakeholders to continue to improve communication within the province.”
Originally announced in 2017, Wireless Saskatchewan is a multi-phase initiative designed to increase connectivity in rural parts of the province. Once this final phase of the program is complete, SaskTel’s wireless network will grow to include approximately 1,000 cell towers province wide.
“We are very proud to continue expanding our cellular network to more rural communities, increasingly busy highway corridors, and resorts to provide world-class wireless services,” SaskTel President and CEO Doug Burnett said. “These new towers will help to bolster and add capacity to our network so that we can continue to meet the ever-growing demand for wireless data.”
Through the Wireless Saskatchewan initiative, SaskTel has:
- Invested $4.2 million to expand its High Speed Fusion Internet network to 34 new towers in 2018 (https://www.sasktel.com/about-us/news/2018/sasktel-continues-highspeed-fusion). Invested nearly $16.0 million to build small cell sites in 105 rural communities.
- Invested approximately $14.0 million to complete the installation of 15 new 107-metre macro towers (https://www.sasktel.com/about-us/news/2019/sasktel-network-expanding-to-more-provincial-parks-and-rural-areas) which are over triple the height of small cell sites.
- Invested approximately $1.5 million to improve cellular data capacity in 11 resort communities through enhancing existing cellular sites.
- Today, SaskTel is announcing an additional 74 macro cell towers at an estimated investment of $72.2 million (see Appendix for locations).
About SaskTel
SaskTel is the leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provider in Saskatchewan, with over $1.2 billion in annual revenue and approximately 1.35 million customer connections including 626,000 wireless accesses, 305,000 wireline network accesses, 281,000 internet accesses and 111,000 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 3,600 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs). Visit SaskTel at www.sasktel.com.
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For more information, contact:
Media Relations
SaskTel
Regina
Phone: 306-777-2727
Email: media.relations@sasktel.com