Little Red River reserve faces weeks-long SaskTel outage

Service Outage in Northern Saskatchewan Reserve

Residents of a northern Saskatchewan reserve experienced weeks without phone landline and internet services. They are questioning why SaskTel took so long to resolve the issue.

Edward Ballantyne, a resident of Little Red River, north of Prince Albert, reported losing service in November. He said, “We were just sitting here watching TV, and all of a sudden it just went out. So did the phone,” during an interview with CBC Radio’s The 306 on Friday.

SaskTel, the Crown communications company, stated that the outage was due to an underground cable damaged by construction activities in the area. The company did not specify who was conducting the construction. CBC contacted SaskTel for further comments on Saturday.

Initially, Ballantyne thought he might not be up-to-date on his SaskTel bill. He went to his bank to check, as he no longer receives paper bills. When he contacted SaskTel, he could not get clear information on when his service would be restored.

“We kept getting, ‘Well, it’ll be turned back on Dec. 2, Dec. 3, Dec. 18, Dec. 30 — then it went to January, Jan. 9.…’ So it was an ongoing issue,” he explained. He noted that many residents in the northern community do not have cellphone service.

Ballantyne emphasized the importance of the landline for elders in the community, stating, “We’re a Native community out here, so there’s elders here that need that [land]line, that 911 number.”

SaskTel reported that the outage was first noted on Nov. 27, but the cause was initially unclear. A technician was on-site Friday, and SaskTel expected to restore services by the end of the day.

According to SaskTel, it was “difficult to troubleshoot” due to winter conditions. It took until this week to isolate the damaged underground cable. About 10 customers were affected, and they had the option to forward their landline to their cellphone during the outage.

SaskTel stated it will credit affected customers for the period without service and apologized for any inconvenience. Ballantyne confirmed on Friday afternoon that both his landline and internet had been restored. He expressed relief, saying, “It’s a lot of relief. I’m glad everything is back on and we’re phoning each other now.”