The Current - As Ontario cuts deal with Starlink, what are rural internet options?

Episode Date: March 20, 2025

Ontario Premier Doug Ford ripped up the province’s deal with Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet service earlier this month, in response to trade war threats from the U.S. But in a country that lacks internet infrastructure, what options will that leave people in remote areas? We hear from a customer who has already made the switch to a new internet service, plus a Canadian business that hopes to compete with Starlink.

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Charitable Gaming. Community good. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway and this is the current podcast. We'll be ripping up our contract with Elon Musk's Starlink. Ontario won't do business with people hell-bent on destroying our economy. That's Ontario Premier Doug Ford. He fashioned himself as Captain Canada during the recent provincial election in his province, an election that he won. And that announcement was him ending

his province's $100 million deal with Elon Musk's Starlink internet provider. It's one of the ways that Ontario is fighting back in the ongoing trade war with the Trump administration. The Starlink internet provider. It's one of the ways that Ontario is fighting back in the ongoing trade war with the Trump administration. The Starlink contract was meant to help expand high-speed internet access for homes and businesses in rural, remote and northern communities. Now, some Canadian customers who already use Starlink have also decided to cancel

their individual contracts. Mark Sharma is one of them. He runs an advertising agency. He lives near Little Britain, Ontario. Mike, good morning. Good morning. Why did you sign up for Starlink in the first place? Well, to be honest, it was really my only option for internet in my area. I'm in sort of a pocket where there really aren't any wired services that are available to me, so

I was very limited by choice. And I went on Starlink's beta program, so I've been an early adopter to it and signed up in 2021. I mean, Little Britain is not so far away from Toronto, right? It's only been an hour and 20, 25 minutes outside of the city. That's right. It's very close. And you were in a pocket where there weren't any other alternatives for high speed internet? That's right.

So I'm on a drive to island called Washburn Island. It's just at the bottom of the Cortholakes and you know, it's a bedroom community, but the reality is where my home is situated is outside of where they've put any services. So the irony is that half a kilometer away, there are services through Rogers, but I don't have that here. Once you got it set up, how did it work? It was transformational. It was very, very quick. Transformational.

Yes, because I work in communications industry and therefore I rely on having a reliable internet. And so for me, it was the ability to stay connected, to be able to work remotely, to do video conference calls, to share my screen when I was presenting. All of the things that people in urban communities almost take for granted. You definitely do. And, you know, I came from the city where I had gigabit, uh, internet.

I had fiber to my house. So, you know, this was, that's why I use the word transformational. It really allowed me to, to do everything, um, that, uh, I could do in the urban centers. And so why did you pull the plug on it? It came down to, you know, I really struggled with the, you know, the decision.

It's, you know, it's ultimately it comes down to, I think I'll define it as my moral compass said that I couldn't continue to support what was happening in the US with respect to Canada, particularly accentuated by Elon Musk's involvement in the US government. And I didn't like the idea that I was giving what ends up being a few thousand dollars a year to Elon. And so, as we are doing in the grocery stores, I chose to vote with my wallet

and made the very difficult decision to cancel my Starlink. The thing in the grocery store is that you can say, I'm not going to buy this can of tomatoes that come from the United States. I'm going to buy the can of tomatoes that come from Canada or from Europe. Where are you getting your internet service now? Well, that was the biggest challenge and, you know, I found a service that is not ideal, but it's working for me right now. Rogers has rolled out a wireless service recently called 5G home internet. I'm just on the edge of a tower. In other words, I don't have great service, but it's working for me.

And you know, I consider myself lucky that at least I had a fallback option. I think if we talk- Can you still do all the things that Starlink allowed you to do? I mean, can you stream video? Can you have those conference calls where you can share a screen, et cetera? If you ask my staff, they'd say occasionally, not as reliably as I was with Starlink, but candidly yesterday I spent a few hours moving this device around my house and finding the best reception. And it does seem to be a little better. So, as I said, it's not as turnkey as my Starlink was,

but I am able to still do all the things that I need to do. And I'm only about 30 days into testing this service, but I'm pleased with my decision. Let's put it that way. I was gonna say, do you have any regrets? Was it worth it to do this? It was only because I really felt that this was an important thing for me to do.

And I did wanna buy Canadian, so Supreme Canadian Company was more important to me than anything else. And if worse came to worse, I was thinking that I would buy several services and then bridge them all together to give me a somewhat reliable connection. Fortunately, this Roger service that I found seems to be working relatively well in my situation. Your situation is not unique. There was an Auditor general's report in 2023,

2023, pardon me. It said that 40% of rural Canada, nearly 60% of first nation communities can't get reliable, ground-based high-speed internet at any price. It doesn't matter whether you're willing to pay through the roof or not. Just finally, what do you think in 2025, there's still a digital divide in this country.

You're not that far out of the largest city in Canada. What do you think Canada needs to do to get people like you connected? Yeah, I mean, this is a really important issue. Canada was actually, we were one of the earliest adopters of the internet. We had some of the highest penetration rates back in the 90s.

The reality was that remote communities were always excluded from access. But the reality is that I think the only solutions forward are through wireless and through satellite devices. We can't put the infrastructure in for like fiber going up to these remote communities. So, you know, I think it's important that we continue to invest in our Canadian telecommunications and our Canadian satellite services so that we have an option in the future.

We're gonna speak about those Canadian options next. Mike, it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thanks, Matt. Mike Sharma lives near Little Britain, Ontario, which is just about an hour and 20, 25 minutes outside of the city of Toronto. Right now, Canada does not really have a homegrown competitor for Starlink, but the company that might one day be in a position to challenge Elon Musk is called Telesat.

Telesat is looking to launch a constellation of low earth orbit satellites. It would help expand internet access across Canada. Dan Goldberg is the CEO. He's in our Ottawa studio. Dan, good morning to you. Hey, Matt. Good morning.

You are hoping to launch these low earth orbit satellites and the service that you are calling them under this umbrella is called Lightspeed. What would Lightspeed do? Well, Lightspeed will certainly help Mike out when we get in service. I was listening to his travails and they're unfortunately not uncommon,

not uncommon in Canada, not uncommon around the world. So what Lightspeed will do, and we're investing six billion dollars to do it and we start launching our satellites late next year, will bring Mike and everyone else in Canada affordable, high throughput, reliable, secure internet connectivity. But it's not going to be directly to their homes like Starlink is, right? You're actually providing service initially to other internet providers. That's right.

Initially, and when I was listening to what Mike was describing, it sounds like right now he's relying on a Rogers wireless service. So there's a tower near Mike. My guess is that tower is not fibred up so it doesn't have high throughput to the tower. Mike's probably having two problems. One, maybe he's a little too far from the tower or the transmitter on the tower isn't quite powerful enough, but two, it's probably also the case the tower is a bit of a choke point. the tower isn't quite powerful enough. But two, it's probably also the case, the tower is a bit of a choke point.

If there isn't fiber at that tower, then you're not getting a good, you know, fast broadband pipe to the tower that serves that community that Mike is in. And so we'll fix that. It's not feasible to fiber every single tower throughout Canada. It's not possible, as Mike was saying, to fiber up all the homes. But Lightspeed will fix that.

Lightspeed will bring a fiber-like connection to every tower in Canada, frankly, around the world that isn't fibered in where fiber isn't feasible. When will it be able to do that? Elon Musk has 7,000 plus satellites already in the sky and they go up, it seems like every other day. I'm well aware. So we'll be launching almost every other day once we get going late next year. But our service will be available throughout Canada, throughout the world by the end of 2027. We wish it would be even faster, but that's our schedule right now. We're investing huge sums of money at a very rapid pace

and making great progress on our plans. And maybe in the fullness of time, I think we're starting with 156 satellites. That'll go to 200 with 250-ish satellites. Then we'll be able to provide high-throughput connectivity probably right to Mike's house and other households throughout Canada. Are you actually going to be able to compete with Elon Musk? It's not just Musk as well.

It's Jeff Bezos and his Amazon project that they're launching satellites as well. I'd read that you were initially thinking maybe you could get one to two percent of the market. Is that what you're looking at? Well, you know, a little bit we're coming at this differently than what Starlink is doing. Our focus, and you noted it at the outset, Matt, we're focused less on going directly to the consumer. We're focused more on going directly to rural broadband providers, mobile network operators

here in Canada, around the world. And yes, we're going to bring a fantastic value proposition to corporate customers, government users, and ultimately end consumers. They'll probably be enjoying our services through their ISP or their phone company. But yes, we're going to compete head-to-head. We've got to compete on the quality of the service. We have to compete on price. And we're very optimistic about our ability to do it. The wrinkle here is that you are actually, I mean, if you're competing with Elon Musk, you're also relying on him, right? Because you're using SpaceX to launch these

satellites, which is another Elon Musk company. Well, how worried are you about relying on a company like that in the middle of a trade war? Well, we we've worked with SpaceX for about a decade now. They've been a great partner to Talasat and others in our industry over the years. You've met with Musk, right? I have met with Musk, yes.

What did you make of him? Well, Elon is a highly innovative, pretty visionary, fast-moving, impactful business executive. You're choosing your words very carefully in this moment. No, no, no. I'm just giving you my impressions. When I met with Elon last, it was a couple of years ago, I met with him to talk about rockets, I met with him to talk about low-Earth orbit satellite constellations, and it was very plain to me and at the time they

were really just a launch services provider including to my company Telesat but it was very evident to me that they were moving up or down the value chain depending on your perspective and I was right they've moved out've moved out, uh, like he has in other sectors, whether that's, you know, electric vehicles or, uh, you know, PayPal when he did that. Do you understand why people, uh, you know, like Mike are pulling the plug on his service and being willing to have to move around a receiver in their

house to try and get the best service that they can get because they're disappointed with the man you call a visionary, also putting, you know, an organization like USAID. Oh, and listen, don't, don't, don't get me wrong. I think Elon's been a highly impactful innovator across many sectors, but I read the papers, uh, and, um, no, he, uh, can also, uh, be a bit of a lightning rod.

And there are reactions to that. And we're seeing reactions to that, not just in Canada, but all over the world. I have to let you go, but just finally, I mean, why is it important, do you think, for this country to have a homegrown satellite service provider like Telesat? There's a business case, but there's something beyond

as well that people have said. Well, it's a great question. And I'd say it's a couple of things. One, we do need more competition in this market and Canada has a half century long history and tradition in being a spacefaring country. Tell us that we've been in business for 56 years now we're one of the leading satellite operators in the world. We've got a great satellite manufacturer here in MDA who's actually building our light speed satellites at its plant outside of Montreal. And there are many other Canadian companies.

And I think it's important because particularly nowadays with the geopolitical situation moving quickly, but from a digital sovereignty perspective, from a national security perspective, and Canada's ability to have space based assets to protect our interests in the Arctic and all of our coastlines and protecting our southern border. And so for all of that, and we're seeing in the news, we're seeing the Europeans investing 10 and a half billion euros and their own sovereign constellation the Chinese are building their own low-earth orbit satellite constellation I think Canada in many ways is fortunate that we have these

capabilities and so not only will we bridge the digital divide but we will support all the other important interests Canada has from a national security perspective, a public safety perspective. I think for all of those reasons it's important for Canada and other governments around the world are recognizing the same thing and they're acting on it. Dan, it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Dan Goldberg is the CEO of Telesat. He was in our Ottawa studio.

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it's a world they helped create. Discover more than 300 careers, paid apprenticeships, and the unmatched feeling of saying, I made that. Learn more at Canada.ca slash skilled trades. A message from the government of Canada. Michael McNally is an associate professor at the University of Alberta. He's co-chair of the Alberta Rural Connectivity Coalition Policy Committee. He's in Edmonton. Michael, hello to you. Thank you for having me. What do you make of Dan Goldberg's plan for satellite internet coverage in this country? Certainly, Telsat's plan to have a domestic constellation

of satellites that's able to provide services to ISPs who can then in turn provide services to retail customers, homes and businesses like Mike, is a key piece of adjusting the connectivity, especially with concerns around Starlink. It's going to take time. So you can go back. Our government has been partnering and working with TelSat for some years now. So you can go back to 2019 and there was an original Memorandum of Understanding

that TelSat signed then that talks about expected coverage in the North in 2022 and all of Canada by mid 2023. And of course, you just heard, uh, you know, now that coverage is looking more like, uh, 2027. So, uh, as with all of these different types of infrastructure, whether it's satellite or fiber, uh, it takes a lot of time to get this in place. People are waiting in the meantime.

I'm, we spoke with Mike earlier, who is in little Britain, not so far out of the city of Toronto, he doesn't have reliable, high speed internet. How many Canadians rely on satellite services for their internet access in 2025? Uh, well, in terms of, uh, rural connectivity, uh, we've had, um, you know, the, there's been

increasing progress made. A number of communities, about 60 communities in Canada are completely satellite dependent. So they would be in situations even more remote than Mike, where there's historically been no kind of terrestrial service that could be offered. So nothing wired. And there's even, you know, potentially gaps around mobile connectivity in some of those communities.

But in terms of rural Canadians, we've been, the CRTC has set a goal of ensuring that everyone has access to high speed internet by the end of 2031. The federal government targets 2030 and we've been getting closer and closer to that. We're you know I think over 93% now connected so still have those most challenging most remote communities left to connect. Why is it so difficult in 2025 to close that last, well, people talk about the last mile or the last kilometer, the people who are, who are still relying on, you know, patching together what they can, expensive, uh, over the air signals,

uh, dial up in, in, in some circumstances. Why is it still so difficult to close that, that gap? In most cases, uh, it's, it's the economic argument isn't there for running fiber to communities that are particularly remote. The economic argument from internet service providers, from the big telecoms. Yeah, they have provided service to communities

where there's a business case. The remaining communities we have You know there isn't those kind of market forces, and you know this is an ongoing debate We've had in Canadian telecommunications policy for years. We've encouraged tele market forces to You know provide an incentive for internet service providers to go into communities. We've given them a lot of money as well to do that. Yes. Oh, we've given, we've invested billions and billions of public dollars. So the current Liberal government from about 2015 till now has announced funding up just above $8 billion.

Now there's been concerns that not all of that money is getting released and it's not getting spent timely, but we've put in a significant amount of public money in often the form of handouts to major telecommunications companies. You go into many parts of rural Canada and you will see the Starlink dishes on people's roofs. You'll see them on the barn, you'll see them attached to the RV as people drive around.

How much of a game changer has Starlink been for those people who don't have fiber coming right up to the door? For those people who don't have fiber and even those who are kind of outside of where we have robust wireless services, Starlink has been quite transformative. So my colleague Rob McMahon has been doing some research up in the Northwest Territories, and he's found that there's clear benefits with speed and cost,

but not just those kind of narrow benefits. It's enabled people to participate more in digital economy activities, remote work, exactly like Mike was talking about earlier. He's able to do business now. So the speeds that Starlink provides are certainly game-changing when compared to older, traditional geostationary satellites,

which we relied on for a couple of decades. Do we really need to worry? I mean, people may not like Elon Musk personally, it may not like what he's doing in the US government or in and around the US government, but do we really need to worry about Starlink as a security risk? They operate all over the world.

As a security risk, I can't answer that question, but I think this is part of a bigger conversation that we go through at various points in Canadian telecommunications. So the ownership of the telecommunications infrastructure by Canadians is a policy objective in the law. We have a carve out that specifically allows small companies and satellite providers not to be subject to Canadian ownership and control restrictions. And we've seen over time, you know, the politics of, you know, telecommunications. So if you go back to 2013, the Harper government was engaged in a very public battle with the big three over wireless prices. In 2019, the liberals campaigned on pushing wireless prices down.

In 2022, we banned Huawei and ZTE. So this is one of those ongoing elements. And it all comes back to, do we value Canadian ownership and control? Or do we want to have a more open telecommunications sector? And we have, amongst developed nations, basically the most restrictive telecommunications market in the world in terms of limiting foreign investment. Just finally, is satellite the best option for getting more people connected if we want to have our own control over the pipe, if we can put it that way?

Telesat may not be able to connect us for years, maybe even longer. Is satellite internet the best option? In the short term, it fixes an infrastructure gap that we can't get to immediately. Fiber projects are going to take years to build out, especially in remote northern communities. If you look at the Dempster Valley fiber line, which a big project going from Dawson city up to Inuvik,

that was about five years of planning and construction. But I think if we think more broadly than just connectivity for connectivity sake, and we start to think of other considerations. Arctic sovereignty of course has come to the fore recently as well. And, you know, there's a much stronger argument for running fiber to remote communities where there is no economic kind of business case, but where there is a bigger question around

Arctic sovereignty and, you know, ensuring that Indigenous communities, particularly Northern remote Indigenous communities, are able to have the same quality of connectivity and participation in digital society and the economy as the rest of us. Michael, good to talk to you about this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Michael McNally is an associate professor at the University of Alberta, co-chair of the Alberta Rural Connectivity Coalition Policy Committee. Any thoughts on this?

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