Lack of reliable internet is a deterrent for those who wish to move from the city to a rural setting, according to John Dunn, a 49-year-old Ottawa resident.
“I would love to buy a small chunk of land in an unorganized area like Port Loring, but I will be waiting until Starlink is working reliably,” said Dunn. “Being an Elon Musk company, I’m sure it will get there.”
Musk confirmed Starlink’s commitment to Canada in response to Toronto Star reporter Peter Nowak’s article about rural Canadians’ excitement for “super-fast” rural internet.
Canada is a major priority for Starlink!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 24, 2020
Andrew Ryeland, 68, is a part of the Smart Community Network which works to find a solution to the lack of adequate internet bandwidth for the West Parry Sound region.
When it comes to the lack of choice in of internet service providers for northern communities, Ryeland said it handicaps the area.
“All I could get was Xplornet,” he said. “And Xplornet is not good at all in terms of data caps and in terms of latency.”
Latency is the amount of time it takes from your computer to talk to the internet service provider and for them to send back a ping that they got it, said Ryeland.
Currently using Bell Wireless Internet Five, he said he pays $69.45 a month for a data cap of up to 50 gigabytes per month and his latency is about 50 to 60 milliseconds but, he added, it should be much less.
“When I go over that, it’s five dollars per gigabyte,” said Ryeland. “Which is very expensive because one movie is a gigabyte and in these times we’re doing a lot of Zoom calls — which people in the city don’t think twice about but, up here, we’re like, ‘there’s another $5 out the window.’ ”
On June 3, the Ontario government issued a press release stating that it was investing another $150 million in reliable broadband and cellular service to “help create even more economic and education opportunities in rural, remote and underserved areas of the province.”
“It’s way too little and it’s way too late. It needs to be in the neighbourhood of about $50 billion,” said Ryeland. “The real problem putting in fibre optic, which is the only solution here — unless Starlink works — is that Bell and Hydro have the monopoly on the poles. They won’t let anyone put anything on those poles unless they pay huge amounts of money. That’s how they keep out competition.”
“Hopefully, it will get better with things like Starlink, and with some more investment,” he said. “They keep rehashing their announcements of rural internet investment and $150 million is nothing.”
The next SpaceX/Starlink satellite launch is scheduled for July 8 but Canadians can sign up for beta access to Starlink via its website.
“Private beta testing is expected to begin later this summer,” according to an email those interested receive upon signing up. “You will be notified via email if beta testing becomes available in your area.”
Sarah Cooke reports for the Parry Sound North Star and the Almaguin News through the Local Journalism Initiative, a program funded by the Canadian government.
