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As long as they don't stop offering Starlink direct to home owners and RV users as a result of this. Unfortunately, given how aggressive and monopolistic Rogers

by tensor 3y ago

As long as they don't stop offering Starlink direct to home owners and RV users as a result of this. Unfortunately, given how aggressive and monopolistic Rogers is I could see this being an outcome. I'm sure Rogers has at least pushed for it. For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and even bully customers. For example, long in the past I rented an apartment in a large rental building. The building had a no solicitors rule. However, Rogers would routinely come into the building knocking on doors, somehow they got an exception with management who supplied them with a list of all non-rogers customers. Where it got really obnoxious is that every month they would also have someone come and shove papers under your door that had a big "notice from management" on it. Photocopied like, looking for all the world like you were in trouble. Open up the paper, Rogers ad. This is really pretty minor as far as this company goes.

stetrain 3y ago
This seems to be about direct low-bandwidth cell coverage, similar to the deal SpaceX and T-mobile have. This is for allowing phones in remote areas to send SMS and eventually voice calls without needing a Starlink antenna. It’s not really in the same ballpark as Starlink’s home/RV broadband services.
- ianburrell 3y ago
  I think Starlink is going around making deals with mobile providers in different countries. T-Mobile is the one for US, Rogers is for Canada, and I remember seeing one recently for Australia.
  - Chilko 3y ago
    In New Zealand they've partnered with One NZ (Vodafone) for mobile starlink.
  - Thlom 3y ago
    They are on the front foot and going for it before the service is really ready for prime time. 3gpp has working groups that is working on defining standards for direct to device satcom/5G NTN (non-terrestrial network). Chip makers are implementing it in their silicone etc. The rest of the industry is a bit on the back foot. It has not been a very competitive market the last decade, but it's burning under the other players foot now and they need to consolidate and turn them selves around before SpaceX eats all of their lunch. D2D could be a valuable revenue stream, but not if SpaceX gets there first. Interesting times.
dghlsakjg 3y ago
Just for context on how bad Canadian consumers are getting screwed: when I moved here it was cheaper to pay the roaming fees for my US phone in Canada than it was to switch to a Canadian telecom.
- FractalParadigm 3y ago
  There are quite a few Canadians who live close enough to, or travel across the border often enough that their personal phone/number is from a US carrier, usually the closest town or city to their own. Depending on how often or how you use your phone, it can be half the price of having a plan with a domestic carrier. As far as I'm aware, most of the US carriers only require that the device registers on their home network at least once every six months, and bills to a US address, meaning even just a semi-annual shopping trip to somewhere like Port Huron (where you can also purchase a PO box and therefore have a US billing address) can save you hundreds every year. To add some more context, their excuse for high prices and mediocre service is generally something to do with the size of the country, which granted they aren't exactly wrong, until you realize that roughly 90% of the entire Canadian population lives within 160km (100 miles) of a US border. Canadian telecoms are a legal cartel, for all intents and purposes.
  - voisin 3y ago
    > To add some more context, their excuse for high prices and mediocre service is generally something to do with the size of the country, which granted they aren't exactly wrong,… Not a problem in other sparsely populated, geographically large countries, like Australia.
    - dghlsakjg 3y ago
      or say... the US which is an even closer comparison
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - 3y ago
costcofries 3y ago
Not sure this is an issue, I'm Canadian. This seems like Rogers customers will have access to reception via SpaceX satellites in remote areas, which is a good thing. If anything, this means a) Rogers has a slightly richer offering than the 2? other cell providers in Canada, b) Rogers is paying SpaceX for this OR Rogers is agreeing to play nice and in fact SpaceX is eating the bill.
- acheron9383 3y ago
  It is likely that Rogers agrees to pay Starlink a fee when Starlink acts as a roaming provider for one of their customers, where Starlink has slow and limited speeds but universal coverage. The industry has similar arrangements with roaming networks when you leave your country; some cell providers don't operate any towers at all. Starlink gets the fees, plus the right to transmit the LTE signals in a spectrum owned by Rogers, similar to the T-Mobile deal in the US, and Rogers gets to market that they have universal coverage.
oh_sigh 3y ago
Not sure about Canadian law, but here a little bit south, door to door salesmen frequently skirt "no solicitation" laws by "merely" providing information to the homeowner, instead of directly trying to get them to sign something on the spot. Sort of the same law hack as Tesla does with their "showrooms", where you aren't in a dealership - you ultimately just order a car online from California even if you're a few states away.
arcticbull 3y ago
> For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and even bully customers. I mean they're expensive, and anti-competitive, but their products and services are very good. Think of them like Canada's Verizon.
- tobyjsullivan 3y ago
  At least on the days when their entire national network hasn't gone offline.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- tensor 3y ago
  Their products are not good. Bell has had real fibre to the home for a lot longer than Rogers for example. Their tv service is a joke while Bell even offers crave to non bell customers for a reasonable price over the internet. The there is the nationwide outage that even got the federal government involved. Super ironic as high quality service was part of their justification for extremely high prices. Turns out they didn’t have basic redundancy down. I’ve never seen that kind of failure in any other company that size.
voisin 3y ago
> For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and even bully customers. To be fair, everyone in the industry is completely awful. It is splitting hairs to say Rogers is the “worst” when they are all so completely terrible and lacking any redeeming characteristics.
nynx 3y ago
Direct to cell and full starlink internet are basically unrelated services.
ianburrell 3y ago
The Starlink LTE has a bandwidth of 5 Mbps per cell. It is only usable for text messaging and voice calls. It can't replace Starlink internet service or regular mobile service. It competes with satellite phones and satellite messengers.
- robotnikman 3y ago
  Its funny how a little more than a decade ago that speed would at least be decent enough for web browsing.
  - Osyris 3y ago
    This is per cell speed, so it can be shared by many users.
  - mensetmanusman 3y ago
    The average web page load with ads is larger than an SNES game.
  - LeoPanthera 3y ago
    5M is still perfectly adequate but it's per cell, not per user. If you were the only person in the cell then you could browse the web just fine. But the cells are huge - 15 mile diameter.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    It still is, just not for Facebook and other social media. HN would work absolutely fine on it.
walrus01 3y ago
> As long as they don't stop offering Starlink direct to home owners and RV users as a result of this. Unfortunately, given how aggressive and monopolistic Rogers is I could see this being an outcome. I'm sure Rogers has at least pushed for it. SpaceX/Starlink has a nationwide license/permission from the Canadian federal government for direct to consumer LEO satellite services so it's very unlikely they would remove this as a service option. Starlink has been revolutionary for people in some very remote part of Canada whose previous ONLY option was consumer grade geostationary Ku/Ka-band VSAT terminals at oversubscriptions ratios of 32:1 or worse. Xplornet, etc. Same tech as viasat/wildblue/hughesnet consumer stuff in USA.
Grum9 3y ago
And they recently just gobbled up Shaw Comm. making them even bigger https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-shaw-merger-official-1.6799566 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-shaw-merger-official... and then this https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-industry-minister-joins-rogers-executive-1.6818806 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-industry-minister-jo...

by tensor 3y ago

stetrain 3y ago

This seems to be about direct low-bandwidth cell coverage, similar to the deal SpaceX and T-mobile have. This is for allowing phones in remote areas to send SMS and eventually voice calls without needing a Starlink antenna. It’s not really in the same ballpark as Starlink’s home/RV broadband services.

ianburrell 3y ago
I think Starlink is going around making deals with mobile providers in different countries. T-Mobile is the one for US, Rogers is for Canada, and I remember seeing one recently for Australia.
- Chilko 3y ago
  In New Zealand they've partnered with One NZ (Vodafone) for mobile starlink.
- Thlom 3y ago
  They are on the front foot and going for it before the service is really ready for prime time. 3gpp has working groups that is working on defining standards for direct to device satcom/5G NTN (non-terrestrial network). Chip makers are implementing it in their silicone etc. The rest of the industry is a bit on the back foot. It has not been a very competitive market the last decade, but it's burning under the other players foot now and they need to consolidate and turn them selves around before SpaceX eats all of their lunch. D2D could be a valuable revenue stream, but not if SpaceX gets there first. Interesting times.

dghlsakjg 3y ago

Just for context on how bad Canadian consumers are getting screwed: when I moved here it was cheaper to pay the roaming fees for my US phone in Canada than it was to switch to a Canadian telecom.

FractalParadigm 3y ago
There are quite a few Canadians who live close enough to, or travel across the border often enough that their personal phone/number is from a US carrier, usually the closest town or city to their own. Depending on how often or how you use your phone, it can be half the price of having a plan with a domestic carrier. As far as I'm aware, most of the US carriers only require that the device registers on their home network at least once every six months, and bills to a US address, meaning even just a semi-annual shopping trip to somewhere like Port Huron (where you can also purchase a PO box and therefore have a US billing address) can save you hundreds every year. To add some more context, their excuse for high prices and mediocre service is generally something to do with the size of the country, which granted they aren't exactly wrong, until you realize that roughly 90% of the entire Canadian population lives within 160km (100 miles) of a US border. Canadian telecoms are a legal cartel, for all intents and purposes.
- voisin 3y ago
  > To add some more context, their excuse for high prices and mediocre service is generally something to do with the size of the country, which granted they aren't exactly wrong,… Not a problem in other sparsely populated, geographically large countries, like Australia.
  - dghlsakjg 3y ago
    or say... the US which is an even closer comparison
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - 3y ago

costcofries 3y ago

Not sure this is an issue, I'm Canadian. This seems like Rogers customers will have access to reception via SpaceX satellites in remote areas, which is a good thing. If anything, this means a) Rogers has a slightly richer offering than the 2? other cell providers in Canada, b) Rogers is paying SpaceX for this OR Rogers is agreeing to play nice and in fact SpaceX is eating the bill.

acheron9383 3y ago
It is likely that Rogers agrees to pay Starlink a fee when Starlink acts as a roaming provider for one of their customers, where Starlink has slow and limited speeds but universal coverage. The industry has similar arrangements with roaming networks when you leave your country; some cell providers don't operate any towers at all. Starlink gets the fees, plus the right to transmit the LTE signals in a spectrum owned by Rogers, similar to the T-Mobile deal in the US, and Rogers gets to market that they have universal coverage.

oh_sigh 3y ago

Not sure about Canadian law, but here a little bit south, door to door salesmen frequently skirt "no solicitation" laws by "merely" providing information to the homeowner, instead of directly trying to get them to sign something on the spot. Sort of the same law hack as Tesla does with their "showrooms", where you aren't in a dealership - you ultimately just order a car online from California even if you're a few states away.

arcticbull 3y ago

> For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and even bully customers. I mean they're expensive, and anti-competitive, but their products and services are very good. Think of them like Canada's Verizon.

tobyjsullivan 3y ago
At least on the days when their entire national network hasn't gone offline.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
tensor 3y ago
Their products are not good. Bell has had real fibre to the home for a lot longer than Rogers for example. Their tv service is a joke while Bell even offers crave to non bell customers for a reasonable price over the internet. The there is the nationwide outage that even got the federal government involved. Super ironic as high quality service was part of their justification for extremely high prices. Turns out they didn’t have basic redundancy down. I’ve never seen that kind of failure in any other company that size.

voisin 3y ago

> For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and even bully customers. To be fair, everyone in the industry is completely awful. It is splitting hairs to say Rogers is the “worst” when they are all so completely terrible and lacking any redeeming characteristics.

nynx 3y ago

Direct to cell and full starlink internet are basically unrelated services.

ianburrell 3y ago

The Starlink LTE has a bandwidth of 5 Mbps per cell. It is only usable for text messaging and voice calls. It can't replace Starlink internet service or regular mobile service. It competes with satellite phones and satellite messengers.

robotnikman 3y ago
Its funny how a little more than a decade ago that speed would at least be decent enough for web browsing.
- Osyris 3y ago
  This is per cell speed, so it can be shared by many users.
- mensetmanusman 3y ago
  The average web page load with ads is larger than an SNES game.
- LeoPanthera 3y ago
  5M is still perfectly adequate but it's per cell, not per user. If you were the only person in the cell then you could browse the web just fine. But the cells are huge - 15 mile diameter.
- gambiting 3y ago
  It still is, just not for Facebook and other social media. HN would work absolutely fine on it.

walrus01 3y ago

> As long as they don't stop offering Starlink direct to home owners and RV users as a result of this. Unfortunately, given how aggressive and monopolistic Rogers is I could see this being an outcome. I'm sure Rogers has at least pushed for it. SpaceX/Starlink has a nationwide license/permission from the Canadian federal government for direct to consumer LEO satellite services so it's very unlikely they would remove this as a service option. Starlink has been revolutionary for people in some very remote part of Canada whose previous ONLY option was consumer grade geostationary Ku/Ka-band VSAT terminals at oversubscriptions ratios of 32:1 or worse. Xplornet, etc. Same tech as viasat/wildblue/hughesnet consumer stuff in USA.

Grum9 3y ago

And they recently just gobbled up Shaw Comm. making them even bigger https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-shaw-merger-official-1.6799566 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/rogers-shaw-merger-official... and then this https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-industry-minister-joins-rogers-executive-1.6818806 https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/former-industry-minister-jo...