Don Joyce, a Nokia manager working from home at a remote lake cottage in Canada, recently abandoned his painfully slow phone-line internet in favor of satellite broadband service Starlink, offered by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Starlink, which cost him C$600 dollars (US$486) for hardware and a lofty C$150 monthly subscription, provides “blindingly fast” speeds when uploading videos or streaming movies, he said.
But the beta test customer said he experiences dropouts during calls on Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
“If you’re in the city and you have alternatives, I wouldn’t recommend it. But if you’re in the country, like in the middle of nowhere and you’re getting pathetic internet service, then it’s definitely a competitor.”
For billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk – founder of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc – the success of one of his biggest bets may come down to just how many people like Joyce are out there.
Speaking at the Mobile World Congress event, Musk on Tuesday discussed progress in Starlink technology and subscriber growth as he forecast total investment costs in the satellite internet business at as much as $30 billion.
If the service is successful, it could vastly expand the reach of broadband internet around the world, connect Tesla vehicles, and even provide a new platform for traders and others with exotic internet needs, people familiar with the Starlink plan said.
But to do that, it must avoid the fate of similar satellite ventures that have preceded it.
“Not bankrupt, that would be a big step,” Musk said last year. “That’s our goal.”
SpaceX’s Starlink division launched its “Better Than Nothing Beta program” in the United States last October, with data speeds up to a competitive 150 megabits per second. Early reviews are mixed, with some users complaining of the problems that have always plagued satellite internet: sensitivity to weather.
Recent heat waves have caused new problems.
“I’m gonna have to spray it with a garden hose to reboot my internet. … That just feels so wrong,” a Reddit user who said he lives in Arizona posted earlier this month, along with an error message saying “Offline: Thermal shutdown” and “Starlink will reconnect after cooling down”.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell in April said the firm has “a lot of work to do to make the network reliable”. The company on Tuesday did not have an immediate comment.
Service should improve with more satellites and other improvements: Starlink has launched over 1,700 of its 260 kilogram satellites so far, and envisions more than 40,000.
The economics are daunting nonetheless. Musk has said Starlink could serve less than 5% of internet users and still generate $30 billion a year in revenue. Critics called that wishful thinking.
“Is the demand there for tens of millions of subscribers at that price point?” asked analyst Tim Farrar, president at TMF Associates. “In most parts of the world, if you said to someone, your broadband service will cost you 100 U.S. dollars a month, they’d be like, incredulous.”
He said there might be wealthy people in isolated areas, “but there’s just not very many of those people”.
He said Starlink would also struggle for enough capacity to support that level of demand, especially as people are consuming more data for video streaming. That would mean “significant additional expenditure on upgrading the satellites and adding more satellites.”
RURAL SUBSIDIES
Pricing pain could be eased by nearly $900 million in Federal Communications Commission subsidies earmarked for Starlink for bringing the internet to rural areas.
Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceX’s vice president, said COVID-19 highlighted the need for “access to quality internet” anywhere on the globe.
Perhaps more importantly, Starlink said it can drive costs down by building its own terminals and satellites. It has hired engineers from chipmakers Broadcom Inc, Qualcomm Inc and others to design its own communications chips, a person familiar with the matter said – an approach similar to that taken by Tesla.
Starlink has more than halved the terminal cost from $3,000 and expects it to be in a range of a few hundred dollars within the next year or two, Shotwell said in April.
“Lowering Starlink terminal cost, which may sound rather pedestrian, is actually our most difficult technical challenge,” Musk tweeted last year.
Starlink also benefits from SpaceX’s low-cost launch capability.
“When you own pieces of the stack, you can do really technically sophisticated things at an affordable cost,” said Misha Leybovich, a former Starlink sales director.
Still, competition promises to be fierce. Amazon.com Inc subsidiary Kuiper has a directly competing project, while OneWeb – a collapsed satellite operator rescued by the British government and India’s Bharti Group – has vowed to be in the game as well.
Ahead of Musk’s speech at the Mobile World Congress, OneWeb said on Tuesday that it has secured an additional $500 million investment from Bharti, bringing its total funding to $2.4 billion.
Terrestrial telecom providers, meanwhile, are racing to deploy high-speed, fifth-generation (5G) broadband services.
The rapid spread of wireless and terrestrial broadband, along with high prices, were significant factors in killing previous low-Earth-orbit satellite ventures. Motorola-backed Iridium Communications Inc went through bankruptcy after billions of dollars in investment, while a similar fate met Teldesic, backed by Microsoft Corp founder Bill Gates.
SpaceX, Amazon and a number of others have “created quite a race that no one is absolutely sure whether there is a big enough market for it,” Iridium Chief Executive Matthew J. Desch told Reuters.
(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin and Supantha Mukherjee; Editing by Jonathan Weber, Christopher Cushing, Keith Weir and Jane Merriman)
PORT ALBERNI, B.C. – RCMP say the body of a second person has been found inside their vehicle after a road washed away amid pouring rain on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Police say two vehicles went into the Sarita River when Bamfield Road washed out on Saturday as an atmospheric river hammered southern B.C.
The body of the other driver was found Sunday.
More coming.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
The B.C. Greens say Sonia Furstenau will be staying on as party leader, despite losing her seat in the legislature in Saturday’s provincial election.
The party says in a statement that its two newly elected MLAs, Jeremy Valeriote and Rob Botterell, support Furstenau’s leadership as they “navigate the prospect of having the balance of power in the legislature.”
Neither the NDP led by Premier David Eby nor the B.C. Conservatives led by John Rustad secured a majority in the election, with two recounts set to take place from Oct. 26 to 28.
Eby says in a news conference that while the election outcome is uncertain, it’s “very likely” that the NDP would need the support of others to pass legislation.
He says he reached out to Furstenau on election night to congratulate her on the Greens’ showing.
But he says the Green party has told the NDP they are “not ready yet” for a conversation about a minority government deal.
The Conservatives went from taking less than two per cent of the vote in 2020 to being elected or leading in 45 ridings, two short of a majority and only one behind the NDP.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.
The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
Toronto FC captain Jonathan Osorio is making a difference, 4,175 kilometres away from home.
The 32-year-old Canadian international midfielder, whose parents hail from Colombia, has been working with the Canadian Colombian Children’s Organization, a charity whose goal is to help disadvantaged youth in the South American country.
Osorio has worked behind the scenes, with no fanfare.
Until now, with his benevolence resulting in becoming Toronto FC’s nominee for the Audi Goals Drive Progress Impact Award, which honours an MLS player “who showed outstanding dedication to charitable efforts and serving the community” during the 2024 season.”
Other nominees include Vancouver Whitecaps midfielder Sebastian Berhalter and CF Montreal goalkeeper Jonathan Sirois.
The winner will be announced in late November.
The Canadian Colombian Children’s Organization (CCCO) is run entirely by volunteers like Monica Figueredo and Claudia Soler. Founded in 1991, it received charitable status in 2005.
The charity currently has four projects on the go: two in Medellin and one each in Armenia and Barranquilla.
They include a school, a home for young girls whose parents are addicted to drugs, after-school and weekend programs for children in a disadvantaged neighbourhood, and nutrition and education help for underprivileged youth.
The organization heard about Osorio and was put in contact with him via an intermediary, which led to a lunch meeting. Osorio did his due diligence and soon got back to the charity with his decision.
“It was something that I wanted to be a part of right away,” said Osorio, whose lone regret is that he didn’t get involved sooner.
“I’m fortunate now that to help more now that I could have back then,” he added. “The timing actually worked out for everybody. For the last three years I have donated to their cause and we’ve built a couple of (football) fields in different cities over there in the schools.”
His father visited one of the sites in Armenia close to his hometown.
“He said it was amazing, the kids, how grateful they are to be able to play on any pitch, really,” said Osorio. “But to be playing on a new pitch, they’re just so grateful and so humble.
“It really makes it worth it being part of this organization.”
The collaboration has also made Osorio take stock.
“We’re very fortunate here in Canada, I think, for the most part. Kids get to go to school and have a roof over their head and things like that. In Colombia, it’s not really the same case. My father and his family grew up in tough conditions, so giving back is like giving back to my father.”
Osorio’s help has been a godsend to the charity.
“We were so surprised with how willing he was,” said Soler.
The TFC skipper has helped pay for a football field in Armenia as well as an ambitious sports complex under construction in Barranquilla.
“It’s been great for them,” Figueredo said of the pitch in Armenia. “Because when they go to school, now they have a proper place to train.”
Osorio has also sent videos encouraging the kids to stay active — as well as shipping soccer balls and signed jerseys their way.
“They know more about Jonathan than the other players in Colombia,” Figueredo said. “That’s the funny part. Even though he’s far away, they’ve connected with him.”
“They feel that they have a future, that they can do more,” she added. “Seeing that was really, really great.”
The kids also followed Osorio through the 2022 World Cup and this summer’s Copa America.
Back home, Osorio has also attended the charity’s annual golf tournament, helping raise funds.
A Toronto native, he has long donated four tickets for every TFC home game to the Hospital for Sick Children.
Vancouver’s Berhalter was nominated for his involvement in the Whitecaps’ partnership with B.C. Children’s Hospital while Montreal’s Sirois was chosen for his work with the Montreal Impact Foundation.
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This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
A look at Susan Holt, Liberal premier-designate of New Brunswick
Sentencing hearing continues for University of Waterloo gender studies class stabber
Here is the latest on the New Brunswick election
New Brunswick Liberals win majority, Susan Holt first woman to lead province
Toronto FC captain Jonathan Osorio making a difference off the pitch as well as on it
Inequality has broad impacts on the health of Montreal children, report finds
Two dead, one missing in B.C. after mudslide, road washout triggered by heavy rain
Premier-designate of New Brunswick, Susan Holt, is first woman to lead the province
