SaskTel is trying to bring faster internet to the 15 percent of the province that they can't get up to CRTC recommended speeds yet. (File photo/CKOM Staff).

By Rob Mahon

SaskTel Rural Internet

SaskTel, other providers trying for faster rural internet

Sep 14, 2021 | 12:00 PM

Saskatchewan is a large province with a highly spread-out population and not all of the people in the province have access to reliable internet. Gradually, however, that is starting to change.

SaskTel is launching a new Rural Broadband Partnership Program that will see them work with other providers to bring more reliable internet to what they describe as “underserved” customers. This means farms, acreages, Indigenous communities, and other difficult to reach rural areas.

“We realize there are still some parts of the province we can’t serve the way we would like to by ourselves,” said Greg Jacobs, external communications manager with SaskTel, “which is the whole purpose of this program, which is to enable other internet providers to bring advanced broadband services to areas of the province we couldn’t serve by ourselves.”

Anyone who’s ever been in a car travelling through northern Saskatchewan knows exactly what Jacobs is talking about, as cell service and internet become spotty in many places. The smaller companies SaskTel proposes to partner with, including H and K Rural Networks Inc, Living Sky Internet, and Wood River Controls, will be able to expand the internet to the standards set by the CRTC.

“When we say underserved, we use the CRTC benchmark,” Jacobs said. “They call it the 50-10 benchmark. The CRTC and the federal government wants every Canadian resident to have access to broadband speeds that meet the 50-10 threshold, which is 50 megabits per second download speed and ten megabits per second upload. SaskTel, through our own networks, can deliver that connectivity to about 85 per cent of the population today.”

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Customers won’t work directly with SaskTel but with one of the other providers. As for the timeline, Jacobs said that will vary fromcommunity to community and depend on how many providers they get on board to help with the project.

“The most difficult to serve areas of the province is between communities where our farms and acreages are,” Jacobs said. “We’re so spread out. Saskatchewan is the second least densely populated province in all of Canada. So not only do we have a relatively small population in the grand scheme of things, we’re all spread out. Distance in a broadband world is difficult to navigate.”

Jacobs also said the southern part of the province could be challenging to serve because of the distance factor, but serving the northern part of the province is even harder because of an even greater degree of separation and because of the lakes, rivers, and forests.

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rob.mahon@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @RobMahonPxP