REGINA – SaskTel is adding additional capacity to its 4G wireless network in 17 more resort communities in rural Saskatchewan this year.
The company said Wednesday that it will add a second 850 Mhz carrier in Anglin Lake, Buffalo Pound Lake, Candle Lake, Emma Lake, Elrose, Fishing Lake, Good Spirit Lake, Greenwater Lake, Arlington Beach, Etters Beach, Kenosee Lake, Madge Lake, Regina Beach, Sarnia Beach, Tobin Lake, Wakaw Lake, and White Bear Resort, approximately doubling the network capacity in most locations in an effort to meet customer demand.
As a result of the 118 communities that received upgrades in 2014, the following adjacent 11 resort communities served by those locations also received a capacity upgrade: Cypress Hills Resort, Shell Lake, Turtle Lake Resort, Mainprize, Meadow Lake Provincial Park, Makwa Lake, Jackfish Lake, Thompson Lake, Douglas Provincial Park, Mission Lake and Echo Lake.
“We understand the growing demand for coverage in resort communities especially during peak seasons,” said president and CEO Ron Styles, in the news release. “Not only are we the first and only provider to extend wireless coverage to resorts, we are also committed to investing in the service to add capacity to keep pace with demand.”
In other company news, SaskTel announced the completion of a two year rural program that provided residents in 54 communities across the province access to high speed Internet service and residents in an additional 251 communities with access to at least double the speeds they previously had for their high speed Internet service.
These expansions and upgrades were part of a comprehensive program to increase access to high speed Internet in rural Saskatchewan. This was first introduced at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) 2013 annual conference and was completed at the end of 2014.
As part of this initiative, SaskTel extended DSL high speed Internet of up to 10 Mbps download speed to 54 communities that formerly had no access to DSL high speed service. The company also upgraded Internet speeds in 251 existing DSL communities, taking those that could formerly access speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps to up to 5 Mbps and those that could access up to 5 Mbps to up to 10 Mbps download, essentially more than doubling the speeds available to subscribers.
