It has been a busy week for broadband expansion in rural and remote regions of Canada.
On Monday, as I wrote earlier this week, Teksavvy announced its plans to build fibre to 38,000 homes and businesses in the Municipality of Chatham-Kent in Southwestern Ontario.
Later that same day, Telesat announced the successful launch of Telstar 19 VANTAGE, a high throughput satellite (HTS) that will provide Northwestel with the HTS spot beam capacity needed to improve broadband connectivity for all 25 communities in Nunavut.
Earlier today, SaskTel annpounced that it has expanded internet service to the resort community of Waskesiu Lake.
And closing off the day, ISED and Xplornet announced a $36M project to provide up to 100Mbps wireless broadband service to 35,000 homes in 21 communities in Eastern Ontario. The planned build out is reported to include 480km of new fibre optic facilities, as backbone connections to towers that will be “using 3500 MHz spectrum to bring 5G-ready Internet technology, with download speeds of up to 100 Mbps.”
From north to south, using fibre, wireless and satellite, it has been an interesting week for investment in broadband service expansion in rural and remote communities in Canada. Delivering broadband services in Canada’s diverse geography requires a variety of technology and economic solutions. The four major projects announced this week demonstrate some of the creative ways service providers are getting more Canadians connected.
Nothin for western Canada yet?
One of the four projects I mentioned was SaskTel.