SaskTel facing regulatory, competition pressures in year-end data

SaskTel continues to navigate a challenging time as a number of forces work against the telecom and continue to affect its bottom line. Keenan Sorokan reports.

Despite posting the second largest dividend revenue of any Crown corporation, SaskTel is navigating a series of cord-cutting, fierce competition and regulatory frameworks impacting its bottom line.

“We’re going to take a look at whatever can be done to, to protect the investment that the people of this province have made into connectivity, whether it be through fibre or other mechanisms,” Jeremy Harrison, minister responsible for the Crown Investments Corporation, said.

In its annual report released on Tuesday, the telecommunications company saw more than 3,700 customers ditch its maxTV offerings as online subscriber services continue to affect its legacy customers. The company reported $106.5 million in maxTV revenue, part of which it attributes to a reoffering of its cable packages.

However, its loss of customers was reflective of the competition in the marketplace, also shown in its wireless data. There were 8,055 more customer connections in the 2025-2026 fiscal year as revenue rose by $25 million to $700 million overall — the largest revenue item listed in the annual report.

The company notes low-cost carriers like Freedom Mobile are moving into the province and affecting change.

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The market is shifting from traditional infrastructure-led competition toward diversified digital services, alternative access technologies, and new enterprise-focused competitors.

To help combat this, SaskTel has Lüm Mobile, a low-cost online-only option where customers bring their own device and can access plans at a fraction of a typical plan price.

SaskTel says it doesn’t publicly disclose Lüm data but adds it “has continued to evolve steadily since launch, with ongoing refinements to pricing, data options, and the user experience based on customer feedback.”

“The service plays an important role in SaskTel’s overall wireless strategy by allowing us to compete more effectively across multiple market segments, particularly as customer expectations shift toward greater flexibility, digital engagement, and control over their wireless services,” the company said in a statement.

Some of the larger problems ahead lie in the company’s fibre internet offering, infiNET.

It gained 25,641 customers, but SaskTel fears a ruling from Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) will harm its ability to recoup the $103.3 million it spent on infiNET infrastructure last year.

“It’s unfortunate that they’ve lumped in with the big three because we are so different,” CEO Charlene Gavel said. “We’ve talked about the fact that we have a big, geographic area to cover with relatively fewer customers, so the economies of scale are a challenge.”

Last year, the CRTC finalized an earlier decision to high-speed access rules, now requiring major providers --Bell, TELUS, Rogers and SaskTel-- to open their fibre networks to competitors. Gavel says unlike the large national companies, SaskTel is a Crown corporation with a limited number of customers available.

Gavel says Bell or Rogers wouldn’t be spending millions of dollars to lay fibre internet in rural areas like Choiceland or Kinistino, as SaskTel is doing.

“That decision will allow others to come into this province and resell the fibre that the province has allowed us to invest in before we’ve made money on that,” she said.

Harrison says despite the province’s disagreement with the CRTC’s decision to include SaskTel in the high-speed access ruling, he stands by the policy decisions to expand internet access.

“We felt that these were the appropriate investments to be made, given the importance of fibre and 5G,” he said.

SaskTel posted a net income of $104.7 million and operating revenues of $1.4 billion. That helped the company hand over $41.9 million in dividend revenue to the Crown Investment Corporation.