Starlink and the digital divide

Elon Musk’s new satellite internet service now up and running for early adopters of new provider

The difference is like night and day, Mike Parsons says.

Recently, Parsons and his wife, Georgina, the only full-time residents of the resettled community of Little Bay Islands, installed Starlink, a project by Elon Musk’s company Spacex that uses low-orbit satellites to provide broadband internet service.

While Mike is retired from the tech industry, Georgina works remotely as a chartered accountant, where things such as two-way video, conferencing and screen sharing are expected, Mike said on a Zoom call.

“This is a real game-changer for her in terms of being able to do all those things that she couldn’t do before without a great deal of difficulty,” he said.

Until recently, they were using Xplorenet, which Mike says is the only option for an internet provider in most of rural Newfoundland.

“If I had to download large files or updates to the operating system … those were very hard to do or next to impossible to do before,” he said. “And now it’s almost instantaneous. It’s just unbelievable, the difference in the speed. It’s been great.”

Along with managing the .ca domain, the Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA) runs an internet performance test, which lets anyone with an internet connection test how fast their internet speeds are, says Josh Tabish, public affairs manager for CIRA.

This data is made anonymous and uploaded into a national database of over 1.1 million test records. Then, a map is created to identify where broadband upgrades are most urgently needed, he said.

THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

“There’s a big digital divide in Canada between urban and rural regions of the country,” Tabish said. “When you look at rural areas, you find that they are five to 10 times slower than urban speeds, on average. … In the case of Newfoundland, you would find decent internet performance in St. John’s, but outside of that, you would not see very good performance in some of the rural and even suburban regions of the province.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that the internet is an essential service, but one that is very unequal, Tabish said.

“It’s been a critical lifeline for staying in touch with friends and family, for work, for online education … for online medical appointments,” he said. “It’s absolutely essential.”

Starlink is bringing more choice and competition to a sector in Canada where there has been very little, he said.

“Our data suggests that the service is quite fast,” he said. “We have about 15,000 Starlink tests from across the country. And the tests show that Starlink has a median download speed of 52.16 megabits per second.”

This is significant, Tabish said, because the average speed in rural Canada is about five megabits per second.

However, Starlink is not ideal for those on a tight budget — although Mike said his monthly bill of about $129 is close to what he was paying for Xplorenet, it costs about $650 upfront for Starlink’s hardware.

“Our data suggests that the service is quite fast. … We have about 15,000 Starlink tests from across the country. And the tests show that Starlink has a median download speed of 52.16 megabits per second.” Josh Tabish Canadian Internet Registry Authority

NECESSITY AND OPPORTUNITY

The COVID-19 pandemic has made getting high-speed internet to everyone a huge priority, Tabish said, and the federal government is beginning to throw billions of dollars at the problem.

“Their goal is to get 100 per cent of Canadians connected by 2030. And if you’re stuck out there with slow internet, 2030 probably feels a long way away,” Tabish said.

“Solutions like Starlink are a great option for folks who can afford it in the meantime.”

The more competition in the market, the better it is for the consumer, Industry, Energy and Technology Minister Andrew Parsons said.

“Personally, as a citizen … I think that we do pay extreme amounts for our connectivity,” he said in a telephone interview. “And it’s not as it was years ago. It’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”

Greater access to better connectivity has applications and benefits on many fronts, like health, schooling and business, Parsons said.

He said his department is trying to get people back to the province to work remotely.

“I’ve had American companies reach out to me where they’re interested in looking at the talent we have here to work on projects virtually around the world. It is a huge, huge issue, which gives us opportunities as a province,” Parsons said.

He said there will be announcements on partnerships with the federal government coming soon, but in the meantime, “If I’m hearing about people in rural Newfoundland that are having better access to competitive rates, that’s a win.”