An Inuit-owned telco company called InukNet is launching in Nunavut, Canada.
InukNet has outlined plans to offer commercial services to all 25 communities living in Canada's most northern region.
The Internet service provider has been launched by Panarctic Communications - which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Qikiqtaaluk Corporation - and Galaxy Broadband Communications, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Crown Capital Partners Inc.
The trio announced the new telco company during the Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit, the region's capital, yesterday (April 27).
"InukNet will provide the northern territories with a state-of-the-art Internet service made possible by advances in satellite technology," said Harry Flaherty, Qikiqtaaluk's Corp.'s president, and CEO. "Connection to the community is vital to success in Canada’s Northern communities and our vast history of supporting local businesses, large enterprises, and governments, and we are excited to launch InukNet for the benefit of all of the Canadian Arctic.”
Initially, the service will start in Iqaluit, where it has so far been installed at the Aqsarniit Hotel, also owned by Qikiqtaaluk Corp., the RCMP headquarters, and Nunavut Arctic College.
The service will expand to all of Nunavut's communities by the end of 2023 and to other northern communities in 2024, while the service will not include date caps or overage fees.
On top of this, satellite antennas and other equipment will soon be installed in each Nunavut community.
"It’s a new era in communications with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites and new high-powered Ka-band Geostationary (GEO) satellites that offer higher speeds with low latency and network resilience," added Rick Hodgkinson, founder and CEO of Galaxy Broadband Communications.
Canada-based satellite Internet provider Galaxy Broadband recently signed a $50 million deal with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite firm OneWeb to deliver OneWeb’s LEO connectivity solutions across Canada, including the northern territory of Nunavut, as part of a multi-year deal.
Galaxy became a OneWeb distribution partner in September 2021. The firm has already deployed OneWeb services to more than 75 locations throughout Canada, meeting a range of customer needs and connecting anywhere from 30 to 800 users at each site.
The duo recently paired up to deploy OneWeb terminals at the Polar Environment Atmospheric Research Laboratory (PEARL), a science station in remote northern Canada.
Conducting atmospheric and climate research, PEARL is located at the Eureka research base on Ellesmere Island, Qikiqtaaluk Region, in the far northern Canadian territory of Nunavut. It is the third-northernmost permanent research community in the world.
