SaskTel

Photo courtesy SaskTel

The Macro tower outside of Borden, SK.

The organization

SaskTel is the leading Information and Communications Technology (ICT) provider in Saskatchewan, with over $1.3 billion in annual revenue and approximately 1.4 million customer connections.

SaskTel and its wholly-owned subsidiaries offer a wide range of ICT products and services including competitive voice, data and internet services, wireless data services, maxTV services, data centre services, cloud-based services, security monitoring services, advertising services and international software and consulting services.

The achievement

Wireless Saskatchewan was a joint initiative started by SaskTel and the Government of Saskatchewan to enhance SaskTel’s wireless service in over 100 communities and other rural areas that had limited cellular coverage by constructing nearly 200 new towers. A four-phase initiative was launched in December 2017 to provide rural Saskatchewan residents with improved wireless connectivity and high-speed internet services.

The work started with the High Speed Fusion Internet network expanding to 34 towers as of spring 2018.  This expansion was part of a $4.2-million investment that brought the total number of Fusion-equipped towers serving rural areas province wide to 102.  This Phase 1 work brought wireless high-speed internet connectivity to new locations and opened up some existing locations to new customers, providing a reliable connection with download speeds up to 10 Mbps (megabits per second) to these areas.

Next up was SaskTel’s Small Community Builds project. This Phase 2 work of the Wireless Saskatchewan initiative saw SaskTel construct small cell sites that enhanced the 4G LTE wireless network in 105 communities at cost of $16 million. The upgrades on the first 50 towers were completed by March 31, 2019. Another 55 were in service by the end of September 2020.

Each site required meticulous planning, increasing the workload of SaskTel’s wireless team by about 25 per cent compared to other years. There was work to secure the sites and plan backhaul links before construction began. The team was in a race against Mother Nature to ensure all of the build foundations were completed before the ground froze or the phased project risked being delayed. As of September 2020, all 105 previously announced small cell sites were complete, improving service in several underserved rural communities, and providing wireless service to some communities with a population as low as 50.

Then, there were 89 new 107-metre macro towers installed in busy provincial parks, along highways and in rural areas bringing in 4G LTE wireless service. Announcements about these towers began in September 2019 with word that 15 were to be ready by September 2020 at a cost of $14 million. Another 74 new macro cell towers were announced in September 2020, when SaskTel and the provincial government said it was investing $72.2 million to build these towers for underserved rural and resort communities by early summer 2021. Those towers were launched between January and September 2021 (six in January, six in February, 43 in March, nine in April and 10 in September.)

SaskTel also enhanced existing cell towers at a cost of $1.5 million to improve the wireless data capacity in 11 resort communities in order to address higher traffic levels that occur as people flock to Saskatchewan’s lakes and beaches.

When the final phase of the program was complete as of September 2021, SaskTel’s wireless network had grown to include over 1,000 cell towers in the province. The total investment in rural connectivity made by SaskTel and the provincial government since 2017 was more than $107 million. SaskTel President and CEO, Doug Burnett, pointed to a recent report from the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission that he said showed Saskatchewan has the best wireless coverage in Western Canada, with over 99 per cent of the population and 98 per cent of the major roadways and highways being covered with LTE wireless service.

The team

Wireless Saskatchewan was a massive undertaking requiring hundreds of hours from SaskTel’s wireless team to plan and execute the project.

SaskTel’s team of wireless engineers and engineering worked on the network planning and deployment for this project. They were led by Joash Picard.