Today SaskTel announced the completion of a two year rural program that provided residents in 54 communities in Saskatchewan access to High Speed Internet service and residents in an additional 251 communities access to at least double the speeds they previously had for High Speed Internet service.

These expansions and upgrades were part of a comprehensive program to increase access to High Speed Internet in rural Saskatchewan. This was first introduced at the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) 2013 annual conference and was completed at the end of 2014.

As part of this initiative, SaskTel extended DSL High Speed Internet of up to 10 Mbps download speed to 54 communities that formerly had no access to DSL High Speed service. SaskTel also upgraded Internet speeds in 251 existing DSL communities, taking those that could formerly access speeds of up to 1.5 Mbps to up to 5 Mbps and those that could access up to 5 Mbps to up to 10 Mbps download, essentially more than doubling the speeds available to subscribers.

"Our government is a strong proponent for rural residents of Saskatchewan having access to High Speed Internet," said Kevin Doherty, Minister Responsible for SaskTel. "The world is becoming increasingly connected and these expansions and speed upgrades benefit both private customers using the Internet for home entertainment and business customers working from their home community."

SaskTel High Speed Internet provides a superior user experience with unlimited Internet access and downloading, faster speeds, spam and email virus filtering, around-the-clock helpdesk support and installations – all for one low price. For more information or to subscribe to our DSL High Speed service, customers can visit any SaskTel Authorized Dealer or SaskTel Store, visit our web site at www.sasktel.com, or call 1-800-SASKTEL (1-800-727-5835).

About SaskTel

Saskatchewan Telecommunications Holding Corporation (SaskTel) is the leading full service communications provider in Saskatchewan, with $1.2 billion in annual revenue and over 1.4 million customer connections including over 607,000 wireless accesses, 492,000 wireline network accesses, 250,000 internet accesses and 100,000 maxTV subscribers. SaskTel offers a wide range of communications products and services including competitive voice, data, internet, entertainment, security monitoring, messaging, cellular, wireless data and directory services. In addition, SaskTel International offers software solutions and project consulting in countries around the world. SaskTel and its wholly-owned subsidiaries have a workforce of approximately 4,000 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs). Visit SaskTel at www.sasktel.com.

For media inquiries only, please contact:
Tara Tibeau, SaskTel Manager of External Communications
Phone: (306) 777-4548

E-mail: tara.tibeau@sasktel.com

Appendix

Communities to newly receive DSL High Speed Internet

Communities Upgraded from 1.5 Mbps to 5Mbps

Communities Upgraded from 5Mbps to 10Mbps