The days of dial-up internet may soon be a thing of the past for many Saskatchewan producers.
The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool and the information technology company VCom recently announced a plan to deliver wireless network coverage to more than 100 of the pool’s grain marketing and agri-product centres in Saskatchewan.
The service is now available to 69 communities, but by next June, all 112 pool centres are slated to have the service, said Mike Brooks, Sask Pool’s general manager of information technology.
“It’s going to give some areas of the province that currently haven’t had high speed internet service … the ability to connect to the internet in a meaningful way,” he said.
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The seven-year agreement is designed to help Sask Pool’s customers connect with its services and will eventually include a producer portal that will allow customers to instantly review transaction histories and find commodity information and pricing, Brooks said.
“The (on-line) things you get from your bank, you should be able to get from Sask Wheat Pool,” he said.
The wireless signals will be transmitted from atop the pool’s buildings.
“The height and centrality of these locations presents the strategic opportunity to provide internet services to farms, businesses and residents in neighbouring areas,” VCom chair Surinder Kumar said in a News release
news.
VCom’s subsidiary internet service provision company YourLink expects to add thousands of subscribers and generate $8 million over the seven year agreement.
Dial-up internet service is not effective for business use, said Brooks, so the arrival of high-speed wireless should spark innovation.
