By François Biber

SaskTel, SaskPower and Cameco announced infrastructure upgrade for northeast Sask.

Apr 26, 2013 | 5:05 PM

Three corporate giants have joined forces to expand telecommunications and power services to northeastern Saskatchewan.

On April 26 in Saskatoon at the Cameo headquarters, SaskTel, SaskPower and Cameco announced a $29.6 million venture to bring high-speed bandwidth and improved power lines to all of Cameco's sites from La Ronge to Collins Bay.

“For our province to continue to enjoy strong economic growth, it is critical that our provincial crown utilities are proactive in finding efficiencies to keep us up to date with the increasing demand for information and infrastructure,” said Don McMorris, minister of highways and infrastructure.

“Saskatchewan's current communications infrastructure needs to be enhanced with the ever increasing bandwidth demands and the expansion of fibre into the north will create a foundation for the growing future.”

A fibre network beginning in the north at Collins Bay will trickle south to Cigar Lake and Key Lake. The line will continue south and split at Lindsay Lake. One line will head to La Ronge and the other to Sandy Bay. The fibre expansion consists of 566 kilometers of new fibre placement by SaskTel.

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Tim Gitzel, CEO of Cameco said there are about 600 employees at each one of the mining sites who will benefit from the fibre network. He added this expansion will allow for video-conferencing, minimizing trips to each site.

“An upgrade to the microwave system that feeds the area at the time might add somewhere between 300mbps. It might sound like a lot but in this day and age it's not very much,” said Ron Styles, CEO of SaskTel.

“By putting in fibre, we move to a reality where we can move gigabytes of data.”

Tom Kindred with SaskPower said their portion of the project is to build a power line from Key Lake southeast to Sandy Bay. Kindred added SaskPower estimates it will spend $10 billion over the next 10 years to maintain and repair existing infrastructure. The project will begin in 2014 with completion by 2015

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On Twitter: @princealbertnow

by François Biber

SaskTel, SaskPower and Cameco announced infrastructure upgrade for northeast Sask.

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