REGINA – SaskTel will invest approximately $322 million in overall capital expenditures in 2014, with approximately $183 million dollars being allocated towards its core Saskatchewan network, the company announced this week.
Part of that investment will include the new SaskTel Data Centre in Saskatoon, offering a highly available, secure and stable operating environment for businesses IT infrastructure. The Tier II facility has several Tier III attributes that provide redundant power, cooling, and power generation. With SaskTel Data Centre services, such as managed hosting and colocation, businesses will benefit from a secure data centre environment and IT infrastructure management ensuring that their critical data is kept safe and secure.
Additional highlights of this year’s core Saskatchewan investment program include:
– $55.0 million investment in its Fibre to the Premise Program (FTTP) which targets to have 100% of homes in the nine major centres in the province passed by 2020. In 2014, the FTTP program will pass 33,700 homes with a focus of connecting 18,000 more customers to infiNET in Regina, Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert.
– An additional $6.0 million invested in its Fibre to the Business Program (FTTB) to bring fibre business services to the business districts in the nine major centres in the province. In 2014, SaskTel will begin converting existing DSL business customers in the downtown core areas of Saskatoon, Moose Jaw and Prince Albert.
– $36.8 million for ongoing wireless network enhancements including $30.0 million for 4G network enhancements, $1.8 million for Long Term Evolution expansion, and $5.0 million for wireless network demand.
– $81.6 million on various initiatives to meet basic network growth and other enhancements.
“SaskTel continues to make significant capital investments as it transitions from a telephone company to a full-blown Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company,” said Don McMorris, Minister Responsible for SaskTel, in the announcement. “This investment in infrastructure and launch of its new Data Centre will allow SaskTel to deploy powerful new next generation technologies to better serve the people of Saskatchewan and grow the provincial economy.”
“To ensure financial viability going forward, SaskTel must continue to transform its business to provide the new products and services tied to emerging communications and information technologies while supporting revenues on the legacy side,” added SaskTel President and CEO Ron Styles. “Today’s announcement is a perfect example of SaskTel’s strategic planning efforts as we outline our ongoing investment in optimizing our networks and the launch of our new Data Centre which will contribute to our transformation to an ICT company.”
