REGINA – SaskTel is investing $32.5 million in its four-year Fibre to the Business (FTTB) project which will begin the build out of fibre infrastructure in the downtown cores of the nine major cities – Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Weyburn, Estevan, Swift Current, Yorkton, North Battleford and Prince Albert from 2013 through to 2016. This year SaskTel will begin converting existing DSL business customers in the downtown core areas of Saskatoon and Moose Jaw.
“As Saskatchewan businesses grow and develop it is vital that they be able to access the increased bandwidth and capability that fibre infrastructure can deliver,” said Minister Don McMorris, Minister Responsible for SaskTel. “That’s why I’m excited to announce that SaskTel is beginning the process of converting downtown core businesses in Saskatoon and Moose Jaw to fibre, with the aim of delivering the highest internet speeds and largest bandwidth capacity offered in Saskatchewan.”
Approximately 1,300 businesses in Saskatoon and 190 businesses in Moose Jaw will be passed in 2013. FTTB will offer speeds that far exceed those of SaskTel’s current network and will allow SaskTel to deploy speeds up to 260 Mbps initially, with the capacity to significantly increase speeds over time claims the company. Due to its extensive portfolio of business services, SaskTel says recreating or replacing these services over fibre is a very large undertaking. In mid-2013, SaskTel will begin to deploy its first business-grade infiNET services – Static IP and Business Connect – to business customers in the Saskatoon and Moose Jaw cores and also to business customers in existing Fibre Service Areas already served by SaskTel’s Fibre to the Premise program.
