IQALUIT — Northwestel today announced that all 25 Nunavut communities will be receiving 15 megabits per second (Mbps) Internet in 2019, which means Nunavut residents and businesses will have access to the same broadband service levels as those in most remote northern communities in Canada.
This announcement comes on the heels of the federal government’s announcement of new funding for Northwestel in order for it to improve high speed internet access in the territory.
“Northwestel is pleased to expand our Internet offering to every community and provide better broadband services to our Nunavut customers,” said Curtis Shaw, COO of Northwestel, in a press release. “Northwestel will be harnessing its new open-access satellite backhaul network – made possible by the Government of Canada’s Connect to Innovate program – to improve available Internet speeds and capacity across Nunavut. These services will provide exciting new choices to consumers and businesses.”
The speed boost means customers will be able to “browse, load and stream at speeds that are at least three times faster than the highest speed Internet connection available today. In addition to offering download speeds of 15 Mbps, the top consumer package will include an increased 100 gigabytes (GB) of monthly data usage,” reads the company’s press release.
Bell Mobility’s 4G wireless service will also be expanded to every community in the territory, too. Bell Canada is Northwestel’s parent company.
“Bell Mobility welcomes every opportunity to play a key role alongside Northwestel in delivering better broadband to the North,” said Blaik Kirby, president of Bell Mobility, in the release.
The improved broadband services will be offered once work on building the higher-capacity backhaul networks connecting Nunavut’s communities is completed, said the company. In keeping with Northwestel’s commitments as part of the federal government’s Connect to Innovate program, the new backhaul infrastructure will be up and running for all 25 communities in 2019. In addition to Northwestel and Bell Mobility, the new high-speed backhaul infrastructure will be available to schools, health centres, public service providers and other competitive broadband service providers.
