'It made good business sense to be the next location.'

Cellular telephone service is coming to Rankin Inlet.

Latitude Wireless, Northwestel's cell phone provider, should have the service up and running by the end of the month, marketing development manager Chris McNutt confirmed in an interview Tuesday.

"We're working on it right now," he said.

Iqaluit is currently the only community in Nunavut with cellular service. But Northwestel is moving into smaller Northern markets with cellular service, having recently launched wireless systems in Fort Simpson and Norman Wells in the Northwest Territories.

"We're trying to bring cellular service to as many communities as possible," McNutt said. "As far as why Rankin [is] next, it has a decent sized population and it made good business sense to be the next location."

Lorne Kusugak, Rankin Inlet's mayor, welcomed the news. He said he's interested in getting a cell phone himself, but has yet to hear where phones will be sold in town.

"For quite a while we have been talking about needing to get some kind of cell phone services," he said.

Kusugak also hopes the phones will work a few kilometres out of town, for the safety of people out on the land.

"You get a flat tire or your ATV breaks down, somebody there will always have a phone to [call for help]," he said.

McNutt said all Nunavut communities could see cellular service in the coming years as the cost of providing the service goes down. And with more people carrying cell phones, it becomes more "cost effective" to bring cell service to smaller communities.

"Cellular is primarily a numbers game," he said. "It developed first in bigger cities and slowly spread to less populated regions."

McNutt said Latitude won't be building a full-blown transmission tower. Instead the company will attach smaller transmitters to existing telephone poles.

The company is jointly owned by Northwestel and Dakwakada Development Corporation, the business arm of the Yukon's Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. It launched its first cellular services in the Yukon in 2006, and started operating in the Northwest Territories last year.