Indigenous-owned Internet provider brings high-speed service to Sask. First Nations

It’s something many people living in Saskatchewan cities take for granted: high-speed Internet service.

But while high-speed browsing is easy to access in large cities, many northwestern Saskatchewan First Nations have been struggling with either poor or expensive Internet service, or in some cases no service at all.

John Degraauw said his company is changing that. Degraauw is the president of Beaver River Broadband, a Meadow Lake Tribal Council company.

“Most of the First Nations that we’re dealing with have little to no service,” he said. “They’re riddled with things like data caps and oversold areas.”

His company has partnered with Wood River Controls and SaskTel to offer high-speed Internet to northwestern Saskatchewan First Nations communities that are currently without that service. The company has completed work on three First Nations already, and is working on four others with an additional 15 projects on the horizon.

Degraauw said much of the high-speed infrastructure and fibre optics (or, as he calls it, the “highway of data”) is already in place, and just needs the last step of a provider.

“We can deliver speeds of of 50 (megabytes) per second,” he said. “That industry standard … is easy for us to accomplish.”

While the landscape of every First Nation is different, Degraauw said they’ve come up with unique designs to ensure reliable service.

Internet access, he said, can be life-changing.

“It opens up all sorts of employment opportunities,” he said.

“You can work from everywhere. A lot of people are setting up e-commerce stores for First Nations goods.”

Children can also access online learning, he said, or use the Internet for other school-related activities. The company is hiring local residents as their “boots on the ground,” Degraauw added, to maintain the services and troubleshoot any issues.

“We don’t have an office. We have people that work from home in different areas,” Degraauw said.