A year after Bell said it would sell Northwestel to a coalition of Indigenous groups for $1 billion, the deal still hasn’t gone through, according to The Globe and Mail.
The buyer, Sixty North Unity, includes Indigenous organizations from Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. The sale was billed as a major step toward Indigenous ownership of telecom infrastructure in Canada’s North. But today, the deal is still in limbo while Sixty North looks for funding.
Tiffany Eckert-Maret, a director at Sixty North, told The Globe the group is still talking to potential funders and is “optimistic” the deal will happen. She said they’re encouraged by the federal Indigenous Loan Guarantee Program, which could help.
Bell spokesperson Luc Levasseur said complex deals like this take time, especially when government support is involved. Bell plans to use the sale proceeds to reduce some of its $33.8 billion in long-term debt.
The Competition Bureau approved the sale last year, and once it’s complete, Sixty North would become the world’s largest fully Indigenous-owned telecom company. Northwestel currently serves about 120,000 customers and brings in roughly $250 million per year.
But some experts are raising concerns. Heather Hudson, a telecom researcher, told The Globe it’s unclear how the $1-billion price was set, given that much of Northwestel’s network is old and uses copper wiring. She also questioned whether the buyers have the technical expertise needed to run a telecom company.
There’s also growing competition from satellite providers like SpaceX’s Starlink, which now offers internet in remote areas. Northwestel had planned to launch its own low earth orbit (LEO) satellite service, supported by CRTC funding, but that project was delayed last year and won’t be completed until at least 2027.
The CRTC has also introduced new rules requiring Northwestel to automatically credit customers for long outages and is working on a new subsidy for internet in remote northern areas.
Bell says the deal is still expected to close sometime in 2025—but only if Sixty North can secure the necessary financing. Are taxpayer dollars coming to help complete this deal?
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Meh, there's nothing up there… No one should be living in the north of Canada.