SpaceX owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures after arriving on the red carpet for the Axel Springer award, in Berlin, Germany, on Dec. 1, 2020.HANNIBAL HANSCHKE/Reuters
Rob McMahon is an associate professor in media and technology studies, and in political science, at the University of Alberta and a member of the First Mile Connectivity Consortium.
Peter Garland is a doctoral candidate in the School of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University and holder of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics 2014 award for contributions to space communications.
Amid trade and sovereignty threats emanating from the Trump administration, Elon Musk’s Starlink broadband satellite service has become a target of public anger and political debate. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said he would cancel Starlink’s contract.
Such a turn of sentiment against Starlink is not without good reason. Mr. Musk has taken a position in U.S. President Donald Trump’s government, which has not acted in Canada’s interests. It is risky to have Mr. Musk control internet service for rural and remote Canada, where Starlink is largely used in this country.
It is also difficult to justify the use of public funds to subsidize people’s use of Starlink, as governments here now do. It is unclear if Mr. Ford has actually followed through with cancellation, and Ontario is not the only province with a contract.
So, where do we go from here? One salient question: “Does a Canadian alternative exist?”
The answer is no. And that means we will have to build it.
We believe this question of domestic alternatives is best answered in two parts: short-term possibilities (and constraints) and long-term strategic considerations.
In the short term, Starlink’s primary benefit is its availability. Now and for the immediate future, it offers internet services to rural locations at high speed and low cost that are hard for existing competitors to match. Therefore, access restrictions or an outright ban would be detrimental to rural Canadians who rely on this service. At last count, Starlink had 400,000 subscribers in Canada and was the country’s sixth-largest internet provider.
Therefore, any decoupling from Starlink should be done only in the future when domestic alternatives are available.
To plan ahead, it is essential to recognize our rural communications network is critical national infrastructure. It is just as important to our lives as other infrastructure, such as electricity and transportation. However, unlike its urban equivalents, in rural or remote communities that lack access to brick-and-mortar services, the public sector should continue to support communications infrastructure and preserve its benefit in the national interest.
We must build our own national infrastructure, and how we do so is important. The model we propose is based on simple but often hidden design features: standards and interoperability. This overcomes previous efforts that have resulted in a patchwork of solutions across the nation but also retains autonomy within communities and regions. Interoperability ensures technical efficiencies and the sharing of knowledge and expertise. This will be reflected in the lack of duplication in design efforts and the portability of technical skills.
This standards-based approach, unlike proprietary methods, allows equipment providers and operators to benefit from market scale. Subscriber equipment is based on standard fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) or cellular technology and continues Canada’s tradition in following the European path of adopting standards for direct-to-home (DTH) satellite broadcast and cellular services.
This contrasts with the United States, where, in both cases, private companies that viewed a large domestic market took a proprietary route – only to revert to common standards when they faced exclusion from the international market.
Moving forward, common standards can be the linchpin integrating a national communications backbone with community and regional networks across the country. All parts of this solution are Canadian owned and operated. Models of community networks already exist in First Nations and Inuit communities from Kuujuuak to Kaschechewan, where non-profit and Indigenous providers are connecting homes and public service organizations through fibre optic, wireless and wired (cable and digital subscriber line) networks. The spinoff benefits of these systems include sustainable jobs for local technicians and an operational model that doesn’t attempt to squeeze profits from unprofitable regions.
These local community and regional networks can, in turn, connect to the rest of the world via a Canadian-owned low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite constellation. Candidate constellations for this approach include Telesat Lightspeed. Compared with Starlink, these systems typically incorporate a lower number of satellites and are designed to support community or private networks through a wholesale mode of operation.
Governments can refocus funding originally planned for Starlink to lay the groundwork for this national infrastructure – literally. This involves investing in local infrastructure, upgrading networks, training technicians and establishing business operations in rural communities across the country.
Having implemented a common standards-based entry solution, possibly on a currently available LEO network such as Eutelsat OneWeb, an eventual upgrade to Lightspeed (estimated to become available in 2026- 2027), an enhanced OneWeb or even a fibre backbone, needs only the addition of gateway equipment and would not require any change in subscriber equipment
In enabling this alternative national infrastructure, it will be important to not only preserve existing community and regional networks, but to encourage their growth as well. The history of communications development in Canada reflects a small number of critical junctures: events when combinations of technology change, social needs and geopolitical forces created an environment in which governments were forced into major action.
Canada was once a world leader in communications – when our rural and northern landscapes forced us to innovate. In our collective reaction to Starlink, we are seeing unprecedented national unity and co-operation across Canada, alongside opportunities to build stronger connections with potential circumpolar (Norway, Sweden and Denmark) and Commonwealth (Britain, Australia and New Zealand) partners. Beyond pipelines and energy, this critical juncture provides an opportunity for Canada to develop a truly national communications infrastructure, satisfying the needs for civilian, military and sovereignty use.
It is time for Canada to regain our rural communications leadership by creating our own infrastructure, based on standards and interoperability, providing resilience, autonomy and sovereignty, and a platform for research and innovation.