In the afternoon of Friday, June 14th, Northwestel held an innaugeration event for a new batch of antennas just outside of Yellowknife.
These 24 new antennas are part of a Satellite Network Portal (SNP), and it’s installation in Yellowknife marks the first of its kind in Northern Canada. They were designed and constructed by the Swedish Space Corporation, with consultation from both Northwestel and Eutelsat OneWeb.
(Photo taken by Connor Pitre/True North FM Staff)
These antennas are now connected to Northwestel’s fibre network, and have now set up a high-bandwidth link between Eutelsat OneWeb’s satellites and the rest of the world. It is expected that the new SNP will deliver increased bandwidth, performance, and resiliency to all Eutelsat OneWeb services active today in the NWT.
(Photo taken by Connor Pitre/True North FM Staff)
During the event, a representative from Eutelsat OneWeb shared a few words on the magnitude of this accomplishment.
“In terms of the future, in many, many ways, this is just the beginning. We’ve been operational within the last twelve to eighteen months within the northern territories. This gives us an incredible kickstart and a launch pad as we now look to move further onwards within our endeavor within Canada.”
This entire development also received aid from various partners, such as the Det’on Cho Corporation, the Yellowknives Dene First Nation, Nahanni Construction, the GNWT, and the City of Yellowknife.
