Sasktel's Capital spending for the 2021 fiscal year remains largely on par with last year's spending.

Announced earlier in April, the $323 million in spending on various infrastructure projects clocks it at just $1 million dollars less than the amount announced back in May of 2020. The $1.4 billion dollar commitment over the next five years remains unchanged.

Greg Jacobs is an External Communications Manager with Sasktel.

"We do these investments every year we're investing over $300 million every year which is translated into faster broadband speeds better wireless coverage better entertainment services all across the province every year and this year we expect the same."

Jacobs added that while their annual investments fall into a number of what he called "buckets", there were really two large buckets for the crown corporation; namely the ongoing fibre-optic expansion program and the wireless program with over half of this year's funds dedicated to them at just over $181 million.

$86 million will be invested into their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) and Fibre-to-the-Business (FTTB) programs, which is an ongoing project to bring their InfiNet service beyond the 9 major provincial population centres and beyond as they hope to begin phase one of their Rural Fibre initiative. If their projections are accurate for 2021-22, they expect to see approximately 17,320 and 1,715 businesses connected to fibre-optic.

$96 million is being invested in the crown's wireless network, which they say will include 4G LTE modernization and an initial 5G rollout in Saskatoon and Regina.

The remaining capital budget; the smaller "buckets" if-you-will include $75 million on wireline network growth and $66 million to improve customer service and operations through Information Technology and Information Systems upgrades and enhancements.

The full breakdown of SaskTel's spending in the current fiscal year can be found here.