SaskTel says it’s confident the company’s failure to secure a new wireless spectrum in a recent auction shouldn’t affect Northern Saskatchewan.
Billions of dollars were thrown around by Canada’s cell-phone and cable giants this week as they tried to secure a new bandwidth opened up by the government.
SaskTel bought one parcel of the spectrum but was unable to get everything it needs to construct a 4G LTE Network for many rural customers.
Vice-president of regulatory affairs John Meldrum says SaskTel should still be able to expand the range for most people who use the rural wireless package.
“In the longer term, the 700 (mega-hertz) spectrum will go slightly further than the spectrum than we’ve got up there so those that are not living in the local community might find that they have coverage further out from where they are,” he says.
He says people who use landlines for their Internet and phone service should be relatively unaffected.
Meldrum notes Rogers paid $3.3 Billion for its package and says SaskTel can’t compete with bids this high.