REGINA — SaskTel announced today it will invest close to $324 million of capital in Saskatchewan in its 2020-2021 fiscal year and more than $1.4 billion over the next five years.
“How we connect and interact with one another has dramatically changed in a very short time frame, but thanks to important investments like these, our advanced and robust networks will continue to keep our customers connected to what matters most to them today and well into the future,” said Doug Burnett, SaskTel president and CEO, in the news release.
The highlights of SaskTel’s fiscal 2020-2021 investment program (April 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021) include:
$73 million for fibre to the x (FTTx) program
The FTTx initiative will upgrade SaskTel’s existing wireline broadband network and bring its infiNET fibre-optics network directly to customers’ homes and businesses. The FTTx program aims to pass 100% of the homes in the province’s nine major centres by the end of the 2022-2023 fiscal year. In addition, by the end of the 2021-2022 fiscal year, SaskTel anticipates 100% of homes will be passed in Emerald Park, Humboldt, Martensville, Melfort, Melville, Nipawin, Tisdale, Warman and White City.
FTTx work includes:
- $50 million — fibre to the premises (FTTP) program in the nine major centres
- $12 million — FTTP program outside of the nine major centres
- $11 million — fibre to the business (FTTB) program
- In fiscal 2020-2021, the FTTx program is forecasted to pass approximately 33,000 homes, while connecting 21,000. The program also aims to pass 1,300 businesses and to connect 1,200.
$35 million for wireless network enhancements
- $28.4 million — long term evolution (LTE) enhancements
- $2.1 million — SaskTel select WI-FI expansion
- $4.5 million — wireless network demand and growth, including $2.6 million for LTE – time division duplex (TDD) fusion capacity enhancements.
$78.9 million for rural wireless enhancements
- A multi-phase initiative to provide rural communities with enhanced access to reliable cellular and high-speed Internet services.
$77.6 million for several initiatives to meet wireline network growth
- $17 million — network modernization
- $40 million — access and core demand and growth
- $2.4 million — community participation programs and partnerships
- $9 million — maxTV growth
- $9 million — customer premise equipment (CPE)
- $0.2 million — other network enhancements
$60 million to improve customer services
Key initiatives there include:
- Customer delivery evolution to implement workforce management capabilities which will enable SaskTel to respond to customer demands more efficiently.
- Service management transformation to enhance the self-serve capabilities of business customers.
- Business tools evolution project which will implement the core customer relationship management capabilities that provide the foundation to evolve SaskTel’s business customer-focused systems and processes.
- Policy charging and control to support faster wireless network speeds through carrier aggregation.
