User:ViperSnake151/SaskTel

SaskTel is a Canadian crown-owned telecommunications firm based in the province of Saskatchewan. Owned by the provincial government, it provides wireline and wireless communications services, including landline telephone, mobile networks, broadband internet (including copper DSL, fibre to the home, and wireless broadband), IPTV, and security services.

History
On May 9, 1947, premier Clarence Fines announced that ownership and operational duties for the province's telephone system would be taken over by the newly-established crown corporation Saskatchewan Government Telephones, effective June 1. The change was intended to separate the administrative duties for the telephone system from the government's regulatory duties.

In 1999, SaskTel launched a new Yorkton, Saskatchewan-based subsidiary known as SecurTek, which deals in security and monitoring services.

In 2002, the company introduced a digital, IPTV-based television service known as Max Entertainment Services, as one of the first such offerings in Canada.

In 2009, SaskTel entered into network sharing agreements with Bell Canada and Telus to contribute to a national UMTS/HSPA+ cellular network. In July 2010, SaskTel announced an employee trial launch of its $170 million HSPA+ network. The services became publicly available August 16 in metropolitan areas such as North Battleford, Moose Jaw, Prince Albert, Regina, Saskatoon, Swift Current, Yorkton, and Weyburn. It launched with a range of BlackBerry and Nokia handsets, and the promise of iPhone carriage in the future.

In August 2012, SaskTel announced that it would construct a fibre to the home network branded as Infinet (stylized infiNET), beginning in portions of Regina and Saskatoon, and other cities over the next seven years. In January 2013, SaskTel announced the launch of an LTE network in the Regina and Saskatoon areas, with plans to extend coverage into other major areas of the province by 2014. As of 2013, the company had recorded nearly 616,000 wireless subscribers and over 100,000 Max TV subscribers.

In July 2015, SaskTel acquired six AWS-1 wireless spectrum licenses from Wind Mobile.

Threat of privatization
In 2016, Brad Wall's Saskatchewan Party government proposed Bill 40, which defined the privatization of a crown corporation as the sale of 50% or more of the provincial government's ownership share. The bill thus allowed up to 49% of a crown corporation to be sold to a third party without seeking public approval. The bill prompted concerns that SaskTel could be partially privatized in this manner. SaskTel conducted an independent assessment, factoring in the then-proposed acquisition of former crown telco MTS in Manitoba to Bell Canada; the review found that SaskTel's net income risked "[being] unable to support the level of dividends that have been returned to the province in recent years", citing the possibility of new or enhanced competition among other companies.

Wall promised that any sale of SaskTel shares would be subject to a public referendum; in August 2016, he stated that "if we get an offer and we think it generates a significant amount of money for the province, maybe enough to eliminate our [ $4.1 billion ] operating debt, if it takes care of the jobs question in Regina, if it provides better coverage, we are at least going to take it to the people and we'll need someone to lead that process."

In May 2017, following the passing of Bill 40, it was reported that representatives of BCE Inc., Rogers Communications, and Telus had been lobbying and in discussions with SaskTel's minister Dustin Duncan; the company stated that the meetings were regarding ongoing wholesale partnerships between the companies, and were unrelated to privatization. In August 2017, Wall announced that he would repeal Bill 40.

Further developments
SaskTel shut down its CDMA network in July 2017. In August 2017, SaskTel announced that it would launch its fibreoptic internet services in the town of Rosthern, Saskatchewan. The deployment was part of a pilot program for deploying the service in portions of Saskatchewan's rural regions. It also launched a new suite of smart home and home security products in conjunction with SecurTek and Alarm.com.

Marketing
SaskTel has served as a sponsorship partner for the Canadian Football League's Saskatchewan Roughriders, and was named as a "founding partner" of the new Mosaic Stadium in Regina. In August 2014, SaskTel acquired the naming rights to Saskatoon's Credit Union Centre, and renamed it SaskTel Centre. It is also title sponsor of the Saskatchewan Jazz Festival in Saskatoon.

Until 2016, SaskTel's marketing prominently featured characters based on the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood", including characters such as Little Red, the Wolf, and Gainer the goldfish. In December 2016, the company introduced a new branding campaign, "Today is The Day".