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SpaceX applies to offer high-speed internet service to Canadians
- armytricks 6y agoWith Tesla's application to generate electricity in the UK and this, they're both starting to look like proper conglomerates.
- hinkley 6y agoIf they've started with orbits over Canada, what other countries can they serve with the same satellites? My great circle skills are lacking, and looking at a globe it seems like a lot of water for the rest of the orbit.
- themodelplumber 6y agoI know it's an exaggeration, but it's exciting to think of some random bored person in a low-access area all of a sudden seeing a new access point in settings. (Come to think of it, with the PSPS phenomenon here in NorCal, I might end up being that bored guy this very year!)
- Voloskaya 6y agoThey haven't started with orbits specifically around Canada. It's probably just a matter of where it is easiest to go through the legal/political mess.
- rklaehn 6y agoThis is a global constellation. The initial orbital planes are arranged so that the density of satellites is maximized in middle latitudes, where most of the affluent world population lives. With a LEO constellation, unlike GEO, you can not just serve a single area. That is why you have to go with a very big, worldwide system.
- tialaramex 6y agoOr, of course, you can just choose not to offer a service part of the time, with satellites idling when they aren't pointed where you want them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(satellite) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_(satellite) The orbit those are doing (a Molniya orbit) means they are looking down at Russia for many hours, then they zip around the far side of the globe quickly, then back to hanging over Russia. Geostationary is cool, but it's very expensive, and lots of Russia is very far North for which Geostationary sucks anyway. So, do cheaper orbits with more birds, but with a very eccentric orbit and voila, you've solved the problem.
- ableal 6y agoThanks, that was interesting. I skipped to the first linked https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molniya_orbit Highlights: "[Pic of 12h orbit] Usually the period from perigee +2 hours to perigee +10 hours is used to transmit to the northern hemisphere." "In practice, a satellite in a Molniya orbit serves the same purpose for high latitudes as a geostationary satellite does for equatorial regions, except that multiple satellites are required for continuous coverage."
- mandeepj 6y agoBesides - 1. SpaceX will also offer high frequency travel in space and around earth
- cryptoz 6y agoOnly remote Canadians, for now I think, in case some Canadians get excited (and didn't read past the headline). Not yet. > Elon Musk's SpaceX has applied to offer high-speed internet to Canadians living in remote areas by beaming it to them via satellites.
- bdamm 6y agoPresumably by pricing it slightly above the existing providers they can resolve the problem of having too many customers.
- jandrese 6y agoThey might struggle to make a service that's worse than Rogers/Shaw. It's a pretty high bar.
- blocked_again 6y agoWhy will non remote Canadians get excited about high speed internet? They already have that.
- TheCapn 6y agoNot sure of your knowledge of the Canadian Telecom market but in certain urban centers there's virtually no competition (or if there is competition its borderline collusion between our three major carriers). I know a lot of people wishing for competitive options to disconnect themselves from Rogers/Bell/Telus and would see this as something compelling.
- greeniron 6y agonot sure about collusion between the big 3, but for both my mobile and internet provider (2 different ones), i've successfully pitted them against each other by calling to say i'm switching over to their competitor and repeatedly got discounts for it. i'm currently paying $45/mth for 20gb from Fido Pulse BYOD plan with unlimited talk and text, and for home internet i'm paying $55/mth for 750mbps fibre from Telus.
- AzzieElbab 6y agocould they instead offer urban canadians reasonably priced mobile phone service?
- JamesCoyne 6y agoThe application was made in May: (look for "Space Exploration Technologies Corp.") https://services.crtc.gc.ca/pub/instances-proceedings/Default-Defaut.aspx?S=O&PA=T&PT=BITS&PST=A&Lang=eng https://services.crtc.gc.ca/pub/instances-proceedings/Defaul... Western Canada only has one rural ISP of note: Xplorenet. Competition would be a welcome change here.
- bryanlarsen 6y agoThe farmers I know use a cell phone modem. I'm sure they'd love to switch if Starlink lives up to the hype.
- generatorguy 6y agoGalaxy broadband and Infosat are existing satellite ISPs that provide service in western Canada
- abledon 6y agowhat mbps range is "high-speed internet"
- underdeserver 6y agoWhat's the latency and bandwidth they'd be offering?
- duxup 6y agoStarlink is saying they're shooting for below 20ms but there's been no verification of that... not clear if Starlink has even hit that target yet. They're pretty tight lipped about everything a this point.
- BiteCode_dev 6y agoMusk companies are working like agile software teams, except with hardware. I'm excepting that they actually launched the satellite before being able to make them work. They tend to figure things on the way. Or not :)
- duxup 6y agoYeah even their 20ms number, the first I saw of it was when they applied for some government money, it's possible that number didn't exist until someone saw the requirement on the paperwork ;)
- supernova87a 6y agoAnd what's the ballpark price they're offering? I think that's more important to whether people will sign up.
- def8cefe 6y ago>"I live in rural Ontario where there are no providers that can provide internet at a fast and affordable price," said Mahdi Hossinzehi, a resident of Cedar Valley, Ont., about 30 kilometres north of Toronto. "With fast, reliable and affordable internet, rural areas will benefit immensely economically, and a lot of younger people won't end up leaving for the city." >Carol Jobity of Adjala-Tosorontio, just west of Barrie, Ont., is similarly supportive. >"Please approve this," Jobity wrote to the regulator. "We're in support 100 per cent." >Iqaluit resident Brandt Chu said he's in favour of the proposal because of how remote life can be in Nunavut. I find it a bit amusing that 2/3 of the people complaining live in municipalities within commuting distance of Toronto. Surely CBC could have found comments from more than one Canadian who actually lives in a remote rural area, Barrie and Cedar Valley do not count. Those two areas would be better served by a wireless ISP, unlike truly remote areas which make up large swaths of the province.
- LAMike 6y agoInternet deserts can change drastically from block to block. It's not an environmental thing that gets transferred by geography so comparing the commute distance doesn't make sense. More accurate correlation would be household income in the neighborhoods there is lack of Internet.
- def8cefe 6y agoFrom your name you live in LA. I live in and know the area I am talking about. Thanks for the suggestion. As for household income proximity to Toronto is an indicator of wealth in itself. I don't mean this in a belittling way, but if you are from California your concept of 'remote' is vastly different to ours in Ontario, where we have less than half the population in ~2.5x the landmass, and that population is mostly in the Toronto area. Now imagine what 'remote' must mean in the less populated provinces and territories (Ontario is the most populated province).
- def8cefe 6y agoJust commenting again to try and make it up to all the people who buried my other reply. Let me go a bit more in depth. > It's not an environmental thing that gets transferred by geography so comparing the commute distance doesn't make sense. Proximity to Canada's economic and telecommunications hub (Toronto) does in fact influence access to the Internet. >More accurate correlation would be household income in the neighborhoods there is lack of Internet. There is access to the Internet in the two communities I mentioned, which is why I brought it up in the first place. The access isn't as good as downtown Toronto or some areas in the suburbs, but in comparison to actual remote areas it is fantastic. My entire point in the comment that you replied to is mentioning Barrie and Cedar Valley in the same breath as Iqaluit, a place so remote even access to basic foods is expensive, is absurd. I know you don't know where any of these places are.
- Sytten 6y agoThat would be so wonderful, it is stupid how things are run currently and it so expensive for no good reason. I wish we had nationalized the internet providers a while ago. That would have allowed us to just write in the law that everybody should have access to the internet. Pretty much like electricity is run in Quebec. It works great, it's cheap and the government even makes money.
- ojbyrne 6y agoNewfoundland & Labrador aren't fans of Quebec Power: https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/top-court-upholds-hydro-quebec-deal-to-buy-cheap-energy-from-newfoundland-and-labrador-1.4160452 https://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/top-court-upholds-hydro-quebec...
- Voloskaya 6y agoThey were very fan of it when electricity prices were low and someone had to pay the enormous costs (~6.5B$ 2020 dollars) of construction with no guarantee of benefits: "At the time BRINCO was praised for having built the station with no public money from Newfoundland, while Hydro-Québec assumed nearly all the financial risk. It is unlikely that BRINCO would have found other investors willing to take on that risk.[11] In 1981 it made a good return on the investment at almost no risk.[6]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_Falls_Generating_Station#Finance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churchill_Falls_Generating_Sta...
- JoshTriplett 6y ago> I wish we had nationalized the internet providers a while ago I don't want to see the actual ISPs become government-run, just the local fiber between users and the nearest meet-me room. Let people have a choice of who lights up that fiber, and what bandwidth and services they want, but make it possible for anyone to compete without trenching their own fiber. (And, closely related, make sure every new development has not just conduit but fiber through that conduit for every home.)
- rayiner 6y agoLike the New York subway which managed to deteriorate to collapse during a period when the City's fortunes and tax revenues were booming? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/nyregion/mta-train-delays.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/nyregion/mta-train-delays... Here in DC, the public labor unions forced the government to rehire subway inspectors who had gotten fired for falsifying inspection logs. (Public police systems in the U.S. face the same exact problem, except with far deadlier consequences.)
- Fizzer 6y agoI'll be interested to see how SpaceX tries to get the word out to rural Canadians once it launches. None of Elon's current companies have had to do any traditional marketing yet, but I suspect that they'll have to for this.
- rvnx 6y agoOnce someone in the village gets it he will tell everyone
- BiteCode_dev 6y agoGeeks are a wonderful marketing vector. And he is promising them a better internet. I would not worry about that.
- def8cefe 6y agoYou can still reach them with internet marketing, people who live in rural Canada still use social media. In many rural areas there will be kind of a catch all local business that springs up and resells cable, dsl, dialup, landline, cell or whatever services are available in the community (along with offering computer and phone repair or whatever). If it were me I would reach out to these people and let them do their own local marketing, in addition to the normal Elon strategy.
- pletsch 6y agoIf it works as well as he is promising, he won't have to spend a dime, word will spread.
- gpm 6y agoPlugging the site I just created that shows current (live) starlink coverage: https://droid.cafe/starlink https://droid.cafe/starlink As a Canadian I'm pretty excited about the potential for good internet outside of the cities and well beaten paths.
- cartooncutout 6y agodegrees from horizon?
- gpm 6y agoImagine you're standing in a flat field, facing the satellite. Degrees from the horizon is how far you would have to bend your neck to be looking straight at the satellite. FCC filings suggest 25 is the absolute minimum for service, the final constellation is likely to use somewhere in 40-60 as the actual limit. I've received this question a few times now, anyone have a better name? Or maybe I should just add a ? button with a diagram?
- cartooncutout 6y agothanks for the elaboration.. maybe just add this explanation as a tooltip on hover or something similar?
- tialaramex 6y agoI'm guessing based on my own experience that it's obvious if you understand why that would matter. So the diagram may be the best option, maybe with a Wikipedia link if there's an appropriate one?
- toomuchtodo 6y agoYou might link to the graphic on this page as a quick reference. Should be public domain as a government work if you want to host it. https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/message_example.cfm https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/message_example.cfm https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/images/astro_horizon.png https://spotthestation.nasa.gov/images/astro_horizon.png
- vchynarov 6y agoI have ranted about the terrible quality of consumer telecommunications in Canada for years - I am terribly excited. I have lived in both the US and Canada, moving between both for the past 6 years, and I am always thrilled to use American providers. Anecdotal data point: For a while, AT&T had an North-America wide plan for $~40/45 for month with 10G LTE with the rest being 3G. I kept this in Canada because there would be nothing close to this there - it was cheaper to use the American service. I've always used my own phone with prepaid plans and the cheapest plans in Canada are awful compared to the cheapest plans in the USA. I also lived in the GTA, not some remote village.
- canada_dry 6y agoAnother Canuck here... I've been using a low cost data-less plan for years because I can't justify paying four+ times as much just for data when I'm away from wifi! When I traveled in Africa several years ago I paid about $20 for a one month data plan (1GB IIRC) that included a usb dongle to connect to my laptop. In Canada the same service would have cost ~$100 at the time. The duopoly in Canada ensures little will change unless it's mandated by legislation. Having Musk enter the fray is welcomed news.
- gnabgib 6y agoIs your duopoly DSL (Bell, Telus, SaskTel, TekSavvy^) and Cable (Shaw, Rogers, Cogeco, Videotron, TekSavvy^)? Or some subset of the mobile (Telus, Rogers, Bell, Shaw/Freedom, Fido^, Chatr^, Koodo^, Virgin^, 7-11^, PC^, PetroCanada^) providers? Either way, this is a bit disingenuous. Totally agree we pay too much, but 6GB with a $1G phone subsidy for $70cad (52usd) is competitive. Yes we get hosed on roaming (even you Rogers). But, it turns out a local sim is inexpensive, unlocking is guaranteed free even even under that contract (for more than a year now) It was terrible, it's currently improving. It doesn't compare to a £15 sim in London with 15GB of data and unlimited chat/text in 2017. Nor do the plans for Canada's shorts[0] [0] : https://www.google.com/search?q=canada's+shorts https://www.google.com/search?q=canada's+shorts
- oh_sigh 6y agoHas Musk ever talked about what the plans will provide in terms of bandwidth?
- gt565k 6y agoeven 10-100mbps down and up with that latency would be a game changer for remote areas
- pjscott 6y agoIn reply to an inquiry about rural broadband, one of SpaceX's sales engineers told the Nebraska state government about a year ago: "Service levels of 100 Mbps down / 40 Mbps up would generally be anticipated, but depends on how dense the user-base is within a region. Latency will be very low, ~30 ms or so, far quicker than existing satellite-based solutions due to our much lower orbit, and comparable to fiber. User segment is a 19-inch electronically steered antenna, mounted on one’s rooftop." And a more recent test by the Air Force measured 610 Mbps with an aircraft in flight, though of course there was very little contention to worry about.
- shaklee3 6y agoIt will certainly not be 40Mbps upload. That's very difficult to achieve with satellite, especially for the dish they have.
- jacquesm 6y agoI'm sure they will find a way to cut the usual suspects in so they can make their money without lifting a finger. I spent a lot of time and money on a rural internet project in Canada. Every time we entered a community suddenly there would be a project from the local telcos and cable companies to wire up that one community. They would never do this proactive, just reactive and unless we threatened to move in they would never lift a finger and continue to charge an arm and a leg for some ridiculously slow service. These government sanctioned monopolies are terrible for Canada.
- wlesieutre 6y agoIt was the same thing with Google Fiber in the US, Comcast/AT&T sit on their asses for years and then suddenly when there’s competition they rush to launch gigabit service in the same cities as Google.
- rayiner 6y agoIsn't that exactly how you'd expect competition to work? (Note, neither of those companies are "government sanctioned monopolies" anywhere in the U.S. They may be a "de facto" monopoly in any given place.)
- eslaught 6y agoAt least in the US, they're "government sanctioned" in the sense that the local city government may have signed a contract that gives them exclusivity in certain neighborhoods. I've been told "that's Comcast's neighborhood" by a competing ISP in the past. If you mean that it's not state or federal, that's right (as far as I know).
- rayiner 6y agoSuch contracts were outlawed under the 1992 Cable Act.
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- matthewsommer 6y agoAh, our beta testers to the north...
- chrisandchips 6y agoI yearn for the day when our god-awful telecommunications industry finely catches up to the rest of the world. I just moved back from France, and its better keeping my French number’s international plan (18 euros a month for 30 gigs of data) then any competing canadian offer. Since I have a phone supporting dual sim, ill probably get the cheapest canadian plan I can just so that I have a canadian number. If spacex wants to do this, I’m all for it Edit: I know the article isnt targeting this, I just cant help but rant
- toomuchtodo 6y agoIf your phone supports wifi calling, it should work with a StarLink ground terminal (or if StarLink partners with an OEM who can build them voice terminals with a satellite-capable antenna Iridium style).
- chrisandchips 6y agoThat’s a good point, I mostly would just want a canadian number for all the bureaucracy that requires it, unfortunately
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- ronnier 6y agoWill this help with censorship? Some countries are blocking websites and various other apps. Maybe this is a way out.
- lutorm 6y agoYou need the user terminal and it seems unlikely those countries would allow SpaceX to ship the UTs there without an agreement.
- dghughes 6y agoIn my little province I recall fiber being run one summer in the early 1990s. I assumed it was future proofing for the Internet which most local people hadn't heard of yet. But 25 years later there are constant political squabbles over why no ISP has followed through. Many plans and lots of money has been spent planning but then an election occurs. The newly elected party exclaims the other guys had it all wrong and we need to start over.