Northwestel Purchases Fort Smith Cable Company

Northwestel has finalized an agreement on the purchase of Fort Smith Cable from CAB Construction of Fort Smith, effective September 1, 2010.

“We are very excited to expand our services to Fort Smith through the purchase of Fort Smith Cable,” said Paul Flaherty, President and CEO of Northwestel. “We have plans to invest in this community and increase the number of services available to the people of Fort Smith.”

Over the next 12 months, Northwestel will invest $500,000 to upgrade infrastructure in the community and is recruiting an additional employee to support operations. These upgrades will begin at the end of September and will allow Northwestel to offer new services never before available in Fort Smith.

Northwestel plans to offer high speed cable Internet with speeds of up to 16 Mbps by the end of the year. In the new year, it plans to offer digital cable television packages with approximately 300 channels. This purchase will not result in any immediate changes to price for service or features available to Fort Smith customers.

"The future of cable in Fort Smith is changing for the better, but it won’t happen all at once,” said Flaherty. “We aren’t making changes right away. Customers will still have the services they are used to.”

Northwestel provides complete telecommunications solutions and entertainment services in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Yukon, northern British Columbia and High Level, Alberta. The company’s operations span nearly 4 million square kilometres of the most remote and rugged areas of Canada.

For more information, contact:
Sunny Patch
Corporate Communications Manager, Northwestel
(867) 455-4245 or (867) 332-3200
spatch@nwtel.ca

Or visit our website at www.nwtel.ca