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.
Nobody claimed it’s broadband. And nobody claimed they need broadband up there. Nobody is trying to remote into their tech job from the Arctic Circle.
Take your straw men home.
The fuck are you talking about…rural Canada is not the fucking artic circle…jesus you’re dense, do you think people who live there don’t deserve proper Internet? Do you think people who live there can’t be tech workers or people who would remote into a job?
Remote tech workers aren’t living in a place without broadband, and I seriously doubt they’re moving to villages so remote they get supply planes, as weather allows. And yes the area includes the Arctic Circle. Remote workers are living in a medium sized town with a fiber backbone connection because their job already depends on it. They aren’t pining away at Cambridge Bay wishing someone would give them broadband internet.
Large areas of the world are fine without broadband internet. Especially when the method of delivery is to smother LEO with disposable satellites. Trying to extend the western standard of living to every corner of the world instead of ameliorating the standard is a major driver of climate change. Some things just don’t work in remote areas.
Cambridge bay might be a bad example the research facility is there so imagine that has high speed internet.
You’d be surprised. Sometimes it’s better to just clone and send the hard drive. There’s always the old half joke about the bandwidth of a station wagon moving a bunch of drives down the interstate.
I’ll repaste the same here since you and another basically said the same thing “fuck poor people and rural people and minorities” right?
Lol what a joke, so you’re saying people in rural areas don’t deserve Internet lol fuck those kids who want to learn, and fuck those people who live out there and don’t have the means to live in an expensive city, they should enjoy their shitty connections or no connections at all.
You’re hilarious
Geosync Satellite Internet works fine for learning, they still have school and libraries. Geosync has worked for decades, so the question isn’t should we screw them over. It’s should we upgrade, given the price?
There’s plenty of other ways to bring services to these very remote areas and raise their standard of living. Just because one thing is held back does not mean nobody cares about them. It means we’re being responsible with our resources and environment.
And it’s especially important to question these things whenever people start talking about, “for the kids!”
No it does not, you cannot do any sort of voip learning with it.
Yea they tried that and it failed…
I’m not even going there with you.
I’m sorry. I didn’t realize learning online was restricted to VOIP. That’s usually solved by just making teachers available there.
But I am going there with you because you started with remote workers and went to “but the kids!” When you realized you were wrong.
The majority of interactions online that matter (e.g. jobs/schools/training/certs) require low latency. Stop fucking acting like they don’t.
I pointed all of this out in one large lump, and you ran with “the kids”. Which is ironic coming from you, who pulls the “the kids” when it’s about gun legislation…
The problem is I’ve done online classes and you’re just full of shit.
Ehrm, no to both questions? You live in rural fucking Canada. Connectivity will be shit, that’s a given. If you choose a job that relies on that, you should move to where you can actually work.
Fast internet is a privilege, not something people “deserve”. Fucking up LEO so people can stream or Netflix or whatever is absolutely not worth it, and imo the practice should be banned. Starlink has been disastrous for astronomy already. Put fiber in if it’s so important, expensive but hey, people “deserve” it right?
He’s switched from remote workers to kids. He’s just trying to gin up outrage now.
Lol what a joke, so you’re saying people in rural areas don’t deserve Internet lol fuck those kids who want to learn, and fuck those people who live out there and don’t have the means to live in an expensive city lol
You’re hilarious
Not living in an expensive city doesn’t equate to living in extremely remote areas. If you choose to live in an area with very few services, then don’t expect the rest of the world to bend over backwards to provide those for you at their expense. The sheer entitlement is hilarious.
Besides, there’s still internet, just not fast broadband.
That’s hilarious, so you think people in developing countries should just get fucked as well then?
Most developing countries have pretty decent internet access already. Maybe not in the more remote areas, but again, access to the internet is not a requirement to live. Internet has barely existed for 30 years, I don’t think screwing up LEO in an attempt to bring faster internet to people who didn’t have it anyway is remotely reasonable.
You do realize that a massive portion of the world lives in what ISPs consider rural, and refuse to provide the Internet. If this wasn’t an issue, then starlink would have never taken off.
You realise that this has held true for literally everywhere, and that it’s only a matter of time until they’re connected too? Between 2017 and 2023 an additional 20% of the world received internet access, a trend that doesn’t appear to be slowing down just yet. By 2030 approximately 80% of the world will have internet access, and somewhere between 2040-2050 we’ll consider the entire world to be connected.
I still see absolutely no reason to screw LEO and fill it with sattelites, just so that someone in bumfuck nowhere can Netflix or something. Internet access may be important for a western lifestyle, but the 90s barely anyone had internet and they lived perfectly fine without it. Even before Starlink sattelite internet existed (and still does), it’s just slower.
Where the fuck did anyone say that? Is this the next level? After the kids?
Go look at pictures of Nairobi and tell me seriously you think they don’t have broadband Internet.
You…you did, you’re entire argument hinges on “fuck those people, they shouldn’t live outside a city”…
No it’s they shouldn’t expect the same services as even small towns. These are thousand person affairs on or above the Arctic Circle.