1979 headquarters whitehorse yukon parent bce inc. website www.nwtel.ca northwestel inc. is the incumbent local exchange carrier ilec and long distance carrier in northern canada . the company name is a portmanteau sometimes spelled northwestel for northwest telecommunications . contents 1 modern corporate history 2 origins 2.1 pre world war ii 2.2 world war ii 2.3 post war development 2.4 modernization 3 subsidiary operations 4 unique service area 5 see also 6 references 7 external links modern corporate history edit northwestel was established in 1979 by its owner canadian national railways spinning off the northwest operations of canadian national telecommunications which is not to be confused with cncp telecommunications a joint venture that cp telegraphs and cn telegraphs formed . the newfoundland operation was the same year spun off as terra nova tel tnt . tnt was later purchased by newtel enterprises and merged with newfoundland telephone in late 1988 . northwestel was sold to bell canada enterprises parent of bell canada on december 1 1988 . since then northwestel has become a direct subsidiary of bell canada although still regulated by the canadian radio television and telecommunications commission crtc separately from bell canada with its own method of regulation until 2007 rate of return . northwestel as of 2007 is regulated more closely like all other companies in canada price regulation and a split rate base that is appropriate to the highly competitive environment in which they operate ; northwestel does not have a split rate base however . on december 14 2011 by way of telecom regulatory policy 2011 711 1 the crtc announced that the territory of northwestel would now be opened to local competition beginning 1 may 2012 . the company s original service territory was the entire yukon plus parts of northern british columbia and the western portion of the northwest territories including the kitikmeot communities of pelly bay now kugaaruk spence bay taloyoak and gjoa haven . on july 1 1992 the service territory of bell canada in the nwt was purchased by northwestel bringing the entire north under a single company . though technically regarded as an independent company through the 1960s 1970s and 1980s it was not a member of the trans canada telephone system or telecom canada the last of seven actual independent companies within northwestel s operating area were acquired by the company s predecessor cnt in 1964 . a crtc order in 2003 transferred a small section of alberta that had no telephone service to northwestel s operating area as it could better serve the location from fort smith than could telus due to isolation and network cost . fort fitzgerald residents initiated the process by appealing to the crtc ; service was installed at the end of 2005 delayed as the regional municipality of wood buffalo demanded ongoing access payments for installing the telephone lines initially at a rate far in excess of the revenue that would be generated by a very small number of customers . the 2003 order had the effect of eliminating an anomaly northwestel already had some customers in alberta adjacent to fort smith though not as far from fort smith as fort fitzgerald . in 2012 northwestel complied with the crtc s request for a network modernization plan which resulted in considerable opposition from northern rival telecoms . 2 in february 2013 northwestel released a revised modernization plan which president paul flaherty explained to the public . 3 but the new plan was criticized by the government of nunavut and northwestel s largest competitor ssi micro . 4 5 parallel to this another regulatory process before the crtc has been underway regarding the wholesale prices northwestel is permitted to charge competitors for access to its fibre cable connecting the northwest territories to southern canada . 6 in march 2015 the crtc ordered northwestel to reduce residential internet rates in the northwest territories while a final decision regarding wholesale rates is still pending . 7 origins edit pre world war ii edit the earliest telephone service in northwestel s present day operating territory was in dawson city established during the klondike gold rush of 1898 . however this system was not linked into the north american phone network until the 1960s barring any shortwave radio links . this independent company yukon telephone syndicate was purchased by cnt from northern light power and coal company of england in 1962 and a dial telephone system was installed later in the 1960s to replace the 1901 magneto board . robert w. service was one of the few dawson residents able to afford telephone service during his residence in dawson prior to world war i. at least one other independent company was established in whitehorse and was able to trace its service back to 1900 . the mayo utilities company was established in 1920 providing telephone electricity and water in mayo and elsa keno city . it was sold in 1942 and the owner sold off the electric and water operations and joined it with the whitehorse company to form the yukon telephone company . the royal canadian corps of signals established long distance shortwave telegraphic communications stations in the north in 1923 prior to world war ii . their function was to enable the relay of telegraphic messages to and from the wired cn and cp telegraph networks in the south . from 1959 to march 1960 the stations were handed off to the federal department of transport ; the stations by 1972 were redundant to fully developed cnt local and long distance telephone service with access to cn telegram service via the telephone operator . world war ii edit in 1942 the united states army erected the first terrestrial long distance system in the form of a pole line along the alaska highway . components normally taking months to build were assembled in weeks . although limited in capacity it served after the war as the backbone long distance network that linked whitehorse with the south and provided ringdown magneto phones to highway establishments . this us army system was turned over april 1 1946 to the royal canadian air force rcaf . in 1948 the rcaf turned it over to the federal department of transport dot which contracted the operation to canadian national telegraphs cnt . post war development edit other independent companies were established in yellowknife in 1947 fort smith and hay river in the late 1950s . these systems were all purchased by cnt during the 1961 1964 period . the independent yellowknife telephone company its formation begun in the spring of 1947 with a buy in of 50 per share has its own colourful history . in order to obtain the franchise they needed to have 100 telephones operating by december 31 at midnight but by early december had only 15 connected . they rushed by putting five or six phones in some homes . the inspector attempted to call 100 numbers and received 100 answers although only a quarter were functioning properly . service was problematic with many unhappy customers and up to ten people were partied on a line . by 1958 the yellowknife company s service improved with 700 phones hooked up . during the 1950s one of the major shareholders in yellowknife jim mason learned that there were second hand cables for sale from a stewart bc company . the owner had died and his brother the executor not knowing much about the company accepted an offer of 1 000 for the cables to be shipped by the executor . the cables arrived at a desperate time long after they were expected allowing an upgrade of the lines and turned out to be worth 35 000 . an opportunity for cnt to acquire federal government telephone services in the dawson creek fort st. john bc area was not acted on and on 1 july 1956 those areas through which cnt later ran a microwave line became owned by the north west telephone company which was associated with the b.c. telephone company . in october 1958 cnt purchased the whitehorse based yukon telephone company and also purchased the dot system established by the u.s. army outright . from there it began to develop a complete public telephone exchange service in the yukon . whitehorse converted from partial dial to full dial service on october 31 1960 . after this date local communities ring down phones were replaced with local exchange service using surplus central office switches that could be acquired at a relatively low cost . the wire line facilities along the highway was changed from ring down services to multi party lines off dial exchanges as the communities along the line received central office switches most of which were ericsson rurax switches that during the late 1970s were modified to enable direct dialing of long distance calls though without automatic number identification . the more remote multi party lines were switched from wire to exicom radios while the ruraxes were mostly replaced in the mid 1980s with modern solid state digital switches though the last rurax remained in service in swift river until 1987 . the three local independent companies in the nwt were connected to the cnt long distance network by 1961 and additional locations in 1962 as cnt extended its telephone service mandate into the vast nwt by this time bell canada was operating in frobisher bay in the east . in july 1961 cnt purchased the hay river telephone company ; on 31 december 1963 cnt purchased the yellowknife telephone company at 250 per share and in may 1964 cnt purchased the exchange in fort smith . name communities served acquired by cnt federal department of transport d.o.t. alaska highway corridor parts of whitehorse october 1958 yukon telephone company whitehorse mayo october 1958 hay river telephone company hay river july 1961 yukon telephone syndicate dawson city 1962 yellowknife telephone company yellowknife 31 dec 1963 unknown fort smith and adjacent areas of alberta may 1964 circa 1961 the company name was changed from canadian national telegraphs to canadian national telecommunications . the original pole line along the alaska highway was overbuilt by a modern analog microwave line that was contracted for between cnt and the us dept. of defence on 25 mar 1959 completed in 1962 . like much of the northern long distance infrastructure a long term government contract was required to make the cost affordable in this case united states military need for a reliable link to its alaska radar stations . the cnt link joined alascom microwave facilities with alberta government telephones now telus microwave facilities . other us dept. of defence contracts with cnt resulted in tropospheric scatterwave facilities being installed to link up distant early warning line sites along a line stretching from barrow alaska to the east side of greenland with a scatterwave antenna in hay river nwt . these troposcatter facilities such as the ones between elsa yt and tsiigehtchic nt arctic red river completed in 1960 were also used from the same time to carry civilian long distance circuits until satellite facilities were implemented in the 1980s . the microwave system on the alaska highway was inaugurated with a phone call from prime minister john diefenbaker visiting whitehorse to president john f. kennedy in washington d.c. . later that year the line s worth was proven in the cuban missile crisis . with the possibility of a nuclear strike by the ussr the phone company hurriedly dispatched radio technicians to each site often on a lonely mountaintop to be ready to restore service in case of a failure . this route was upgraded to modern digital microwave technology in the early 1990s . direct distance dialing ddd was first introduced in 1972 just 21 years after its initial introduction in englewood new jersey and 14 years after introduction to canada at toronto and montreal . ddd became available on all but a handful of exchanges by the spring