this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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A $2.14-billion federal loan for an Ottawa-based satellite operator has Canadian politicians arguing about whether American billionaire Elon Musk poses a national security risk.

The fight involves internet connectivity in remote regions as Canada tries to live up to its promise to connect every Canadian household to high-speed internet by 2030.

A week ago, the Liberal government announced the loan to Telesat, which is launching a constellation of low Earth orbit satellites that will be able to connect the most remote areas of the country to broadband internet.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett objected to the price tag, asking Musk in a social media post how much it would cost to provide his Starlink to every Canadian household that does not have high-speed access.

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[–] TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Unfortunately this is where Musk figured out how to corner the market ahead of time. It was the same thing when cellular tech came into the mainstream. Lots of less developed countries with poor or no hardwired telcom infra found that skipping ahead to next-gen tech (cell towers) was super cheap and quick to build, so lots of corners of the earth found themselves connected in the 90's that had never been prior to that decade.

Starlink and low-orbit sats for internet coverage are a similar leap ahead in cost and speed to deploy. Elon and his goons saw it coming long before anyone else did, and the fact they also have Space X was a pretty key part of their speed to deploy.

I'm no Elon stan, I hate the fucking guy. But it is what it is. He got there first and people in northern canada can already access Starlink for under 200/mo. I am no math guy but I suspect that even if the fed gov paid every cent of everyone's subscription to Starlink it wouldn't amount to 2 billion dollars. 🀷

EDIT just did some napkin math. With the help of wiki found that the population of northern canada is less than 120k people. So cost of taxpayers footing the bill for everyone up there to be on Starlink would be 24 million/yr. Or... for that same 2 billion, 83 years of Starlink subscriptions for each and every person up there. That would be if each single person had their own dish.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.ca 24 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Except that Starlink pricing and throughput is not linear. They're starting to add congestion charges in popular areas, they have no satellites at higher latitudes, and their devices suffer at low temperatures. If you think that Starlink will be able to deliver what Elmo claims, then I have a trip to the Titanic to sell to you.

[–] TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee 9 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Again, I'm no Elon stan. You don't have to convince me he's a dbag, and I wish some other competitor would come along with something better. However I've personally used Starlink in sub -30C temps for work, for weeks at a time. The dishes work perfectly fine in cold climates, and they have a self-heating element to de-ice themselves if you enable that feature. I don't know what you're talking about. I do know lots of other people who also rely on it in similar climates.

You can go onto Starlink's coverage map right now and order service to Dawson City Yukon, and anywhere equilateral to that point. There's a pretty big market for it in Alaska, already. The tech does what it says it does, which kinda sucks because I'd rather not put money into his fucking bank account. But yeah. It is what it is.

[–] Breve@pawb.social 5 points 1 month ago

Again, I'm no Elon stan. You don't have to convince me he's a dbag, and I wish some other competitor would come along with something better.

That's what the government should do then, help create a Canadian competitor... 🀷

[–] smallpatatas@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Not to mention that their napkin math is wrong by a factor of 12

[–] TerkErJerbs@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago

Yeah I got the memo. Disclaimer above that I am not a math guy and shouldn't have ever attempted it. 🀷