Entry #14 Saskatchewan Takes a Step Forward

Tech News

Today the Saskatchewan government announce that it and Sasktel will fund a 129 million dollar project to bring high speed Internet coverage to 100 percent of the province and also cellular coverage to 98 percent of the population for Saskatchewan.

I think this is a admiral feat by the Sask Party and Sasktel but I worry it will get bogged down in bureaucratic and cost inflation nightmares.

Lets hope that they can pull this off but also that they do not stop there. As this is fantastic news I worry that Sasktel is slow to innovation and dramatically behind in the technology. In fact if you look at the map here the first thing that glares out is the lack of EV-DO coverage (orange color). This coverage is minuscule compared to other providers and not to mention it is also old technology. today EV-DO is being replaced with 3G networks and in some location even 3.5G the upgrade to 3G. This puts Sasktel way behind the curve in regards to their cell technology and in fact Sasktel may find them struggling by the time they finish the upgrade because cell phone company like RIM, the maker of the Blackberry, Sasktel's Smart phone choice is now making cell phones that support 3G and other cell phone companies are starting to only offer phones to providers that have 3G coverage. if this trend continues Sasktel might be in a position of having to find a supplier of second hand phones because they can not get new one to sell.