[HN Gopher] SpaceX, Rogers to connect mobiles phones to satellit...
___________________________________________________________________
SpaceX, Rogers to connect mobiles phones to satellites in remote
Canadian areas
Author : dev_tty01
Score : 63 points
Date : 2023-04-26 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| version_five wrote:
| Without knowing all the details, I'd call this a major loss for
| Canadian consumers, and exactly the kind of crap we have to put
| up with in Canada. Instead of getting to buy a new, innovative
| product, we'll be forced to get the expensive shitty version
| though our telecom oligopoly that has the government in their
| pocket. I'm really pissed off Elon Musk would have collaborated
| with one of the worlds most consumer unfriendly companies in this
| way, and not tried to help Canadians avoid getting screwed.
| (Fixed typo)
|
| Edit: per another comment, this appears more benign than I though
| at first reading, though anything involving Roger's is a loss for
| Canadians https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35719151
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Not elons problem
| version_five wrote:
| I agree it's not his problem, but he's generally been
| supportive of Canada and what we have to put up with so it's
| shitty to see him get into business with the poster child for
| what's wrong with the Canadaian business and consumer
| environment. Maybe it would be better to say I'm
| disappointed.
| nickff wrote:
| What do you mean? I don't understand what "[sic] knew,
| innovative product" you wanted or expected. I also don't
| understand what you wanted Musk to do to "help Canadians avoid
| getting screwed".
| stetrain wrote:
| I don't understand.
|
| This sounds like the same deal SpaceX and T-Mobile have in the
| US, where Starlink satellites will be providing direct cell
| coverage to phones for basic SMS and voice call capability in
| remote areas.
|
| This is separate from the Starlink home internet service which
| uses a dedicated phased array antenna for broadband speeds.
| tensor wrote:
| As long as they don't stop offering Starlink direct to home
| owners and RV users as a result of this. Unfortunately, given how
| aggressive and monopolistic Rogers is I could see this being an
| outcome. I'm sure Rogers has at least pushed for it.
|
| For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the absolute
| worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They routinely use
| grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and even bully
| customers.
|
| For example, long in the past I rented an apartment in a large
| rental building. The building had a no solicitors rule. However,
| Rogers would routinely come into the building knocking on doors,
| somehow they got an exception with management who supplied them
| with a list of all non-rogers customers.
|
| Where it got really obnoxious is that every month they would also
| have someone come and shove papers under your door that had a big
| "notice from management" on it. Photocopied like, looking for all
| the world like you were in trouble. Open up the paper, Rogers ad.
|
| This is really pretty minor as far as this company goes.
| voisin wrote:
| > For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the
| absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They
| routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and
| even bully customers.
|
| To be fair, everyone in the industry is completely awful. It is
| splitting hairs to say Rogers is the "worst" when they are all
| so completely terrible and lacking any redeeming
| characteristics.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Not sure about Canadian law, but here a little bit south, door
| to door salesmen frequently skirt "no solicitation" laws by
| "merely" providing information to the homeowner, instead of
| directly trying to get them to sign something on the spot.
|
| Sort of the same law hack as Tesla does with their "showrooms",
| where you aren't in a dealership - you ultimately just order a
| car online from California even if you're a few states away.
| nynx wrote:
| Direct to cell and full starlink internet are basically
| unrelated services.
| stetrain wrote:
| This seems to be about direct low-bandwidth cell coverage,
| similar to the deal SpaceX and T-mobile have.
|
| This is for allowing phones in remote areas to send SMS and
| eventually voice calls without needing a Starlink antenna.
|
| It's not really in the same ballpark as Starlink's home/RV
| broadband services.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > For non-Canadians, Rogers is the largest but also the
| absolute worst mobile/internet/tv provider in Canada. They
| routinely use grey area tactics to both bully competitors, and
| even bully customers.
|
| I mean they're expensive, and anti-competitive, but their
| products and services are very good.
|
| Think of them like Canada's Verizon.
| tobyjsullivan wrote:
| At least on the days when their entire national network
| hasn't gone offline.
| [deleted]
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Just for context on how bad Canadian consumers are getting
| screwed: when I moved here it was cheaper to pay the roaming
| fees for my US phone in Canada than it was to switch to a
| Canadian telecom.
| ChumpGPT wrote:
| During the NAFTA 2.0 negotiations, Trudeau allow Rogers and
| Bell to claim they are Canadian Media companies and not
| telcos giving them protection against American telcos and
| made sure that Canadians will never enjoy the same rates US
| Consumers enjoy by offering this protection. It's the same
| for many Canadian industries that can operate without any
| competition from the US.
|
| I don't think anyone in the US can even fathom the prices
| Canadians are charged for the service they get. My $80
| Googlefi plan (4 lines) would cost around $500 plus a month
| in Canada.
| FractalParadigm wrote:
| There are quite a few Canadians who live close enough to, or
| travel across the border often enough that their personal
| phone/number is from a US carrier, usually the closest town
| or city to their own. Depending on how often or how you use
| your phone, it can be half the price of having a plan with a
| domestic carrier. As far as I'm aware, most of the US
| carriers only require that the device registers on their home
| network at least once every six months, and bills to a US
| address, meaning even just a semi-annual shopping trip to
| somewhere like Port Huron (where you can also purchase a PO
| box and therefore have a US billing address) can save you
| hundreds every year.
|
| To add some more context, their excuse for high prices and
| mediocre service is generally something to do with the size
| of the country, which granted they aren't exactly wrong,
| until you realize that roughly 90% of the entire Canadian
| population lives within 160km (100 miles) of a US border.
| Canadian telecoms are a legal cartel, for all intents and
| purposes.
| voisin wrote:
| > To add some more context, their excuse for high prices
| and mediocre service is generally something to do with the
| size of the country, which granted they aren't exactly
| wrong,...
|
| Not a problem in other sparsely populated, geographically
| large countries, like Australia.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| or say... the US which is an even closer comparison
| SECProto wrote:
| > when I moved here it was cheaper to pay the roaming fees
| for my US phone in Canada than it was to switch to a Canadian
| telecom.
|
| Was it data quantity that made that feasible? My Canadian
| plan is $45/month and has unlimited phone time and 6 gigs of
| data (which is great for my usage) and is on one of the big
| three carriers so coverage is great. Freedom mobile offers
| 20gb for $50, but their coverage is weaker (i.e. you're
| roaming outside of major cities). These convert to $33/$36 in
| USD. Both of these options look significantly cheaper than
| any plans I quickly see on the big US carriers, before even
| accounting for the roaming charges (albeit with more limited
| data)
| lstamour wrote:
| If you go back to when T-mobile was incredibly competitive,
| plans were often $20-30. If I want a month, I can get a SIM
| prepaid for $30 or less with all the data in the US, and
| sometimes as little as $3 in Europe.
|
| Plus there was a time, albeit almost a decade ago now when
| the dollar was on par. Even about a year ago the dollar was
| still aiming for 0.8 rather than the 0.74 it's flirting
| with right now.
|
| Lastly, if you want an Apple Watch with cellular, you end
| up needing a more expensive plan from the big three rather
| than their sub-brands. And the Canadian government is
| threatening regulation to encourage carriers to offer more
| data for less. There was a time within the decade when $60
| at Fido would get you 2GB and that was during a "double
| data" promo. This was 2018.
| https://forums.redflagdeals.com/fido-60-unlimited-canada-
| wid...
| costcofries wrote:
| Not sure this is an issue, I'm Canadian. This seems like Rogers
| customers will have access to reception via SpaceX satellites
| in remote areas, which is a good thing. If anything, this means
| a) Rogers has a slightly richer offering than the 2? other cell
| providers in Canada, b) Rogers is paying SpaceX for this OR
| Rogers is agreeing to play nice and in fact SpaceX is eating
| the bill.
| Taniwha wrote:
| One of the New Zealand cell phone companies has done this same
| deal and are advertising it heavily at the moment (along with
| SpaceX branding, which may not be the positive they think it is
| right now)
| veb wrote:
| I was pretty surprised to see that advertising actually,
| definitely caught me off guard to see Vodafone changing their
| name to One NZ (for example) and then this news to provide 100%
| coverage.
|
| Which I suppose would be good for those very rural farmers.
| Maybe places along the west coast/milford/fiordland would def
| benefit from it. Guess it's one of those things we wait and see
| how it gets rolled out. And boaties I guess. Basically anyone
| who can't connect to fibre, and that fibre rollout is pretty
| extensive as it stands!
| ortusdux wrote:
| Has anyone used a RockBLOCK? They seemed to be the cheapest way
| to send SMS via the iridium network. I wonder how long until we
| see something similar for starlink's network.
|
| https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13745
| rvnx wrote:
| Seems quite expensive. On top you need to add 15 USD / month.
|
| So for 300 USD + 15 USD / month, you can get a Garmin inReach
| Messenger
| initplus wrote:
| You also need an active Iridium subscription to use a Garmin.
| Iridium is really expensive. Data caps are a low number of
| kb's.
|
| These RockBLOCK's are intended as a drop in comms module for
| remote embedded devices like weather stations.
| rvnx wrote:
| Yes you need it for the RockBLOCK too:
|
| https://docs.rockblock.rock7.com/docs/iridium-contract-
| costs
| tjohns wrote:
| Already exists: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/21287
| ortusdux wrote:
| Those are for the Swarm network of satellites. Their smaller
| modem is $90, and data service is $5/mo for 750 packets (192
| bytes/ea).
|
| What I'm wondering is how long it will be before we see a
| similar device/service for Starlink's network.
| moolcool wrote:
| > What I'm wondering is how long it will be before we see a
| similar device/service for Starlink's network.
|
| For low bandwidth applications like Swarm, perhaps a cheap
| 4g breakout board would work out-of-the-box with the right
| plan.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Anyone know why SpaceX isn't trying to get deals similar to
| Amazon's Kuiper?
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/26/verizon-partnering-with-amaz...
|
| Why have cell phones communicate with the SAT directly if you can
| just use the SATs to deploy "normal" cell towers?
| scohesc wrote:
| Very interesting to see this agreement happen! I'm sure a lot of
| rural Canadians would appreciate being able to send text messages
| from remote areas in emergency situations, etc.
|
| Especially for hikers/campers who go up there for weeks at a time
| - would help with those situations where you want to stay camping
| for one more week but you can't as you've told your loved ones
| you'd be back by a certain date/time. Instead, a quick text to
| say you're okay and you plan to stay a while longer would be a
| nice convenience.
|
| Unfortunate that Canada seems to be allowing the mergers of
| massive telecom companies without any concerns of monopolization,
| price fixing, etc. etc, though that's a bit of a tangent.
| apercu wrote:
| The previous option (a $1500 Iridium 9555 and a $100/mo plan
| with a 2-year minimum term for 100 minutes/mo+a little data)
| was expensive so it's good to see more economical options for
| people. No argument on the oligopoly.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| The previous option is more likely the SPOT and inReach
| devices, which are around $20/mo. No voice, but text and
| location tracking.
|
| Also, screw canadian telecoms
| jjulius wrote:
| Yeah I was gonna say, an InReach Mini 2 is only $399 and
| $14.95/mo for the lowest plan. Gives you 10 text
| messages/month (but you have the ability to send more for,
| I think, $0.10/text). Folk might scoff at the price, but
| for any "hikers/campers who go up there for weeks at a
| time" this is quite likely already a tool that they have
| that provides additional capabilities mobile phones may not
| (eg, streamlined SOS services).
| soperj wrote:
| > Unfortunate that Canada seems to be allowing the mergers of
| massive telecom companies without any concerns of
| monopolization, price fixing, etc. etc, though that's a bit of
| a tangent.
|
| Shaw isn't really a telecom in the traditional sense, they
| don't really have any mobile phone subscriber base. That being
| said, we've always had monopolization, and price fixing for
| those things in Canada.
| Marsymars wrote:
| Well they had Freedom Mobile, which got divested to Quebecor
| as part of the Rogers merger, and Shaw Mobile, which was
| rebranded-Freedom bundled with their landline offerings.
| (Which will be migrated to Rogers.)
|
| (Shaw also spend some years attempting to build mobile
| infrastructure before buying Wind.)
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| I suppose this is Rogers' plan to make their service not
| miserably terrible in remote areas?
|
| There are other companies such as Telus that have great coverage
| in rural areas, presumably because they're the ancestor of state
| owned BC Tel and have access to that great infrastructure.
|
| So Rogers was faced with either having to duplicate the
| infrastructure that Telus already had, or do some innovative deal
| like this to bypass having to do that.
|
| It all suggests that this is being done the wrong way, with great
| waste and cost, that all this infrastructure is a basic utility
| that should be done once by a state owned monopoly that is
| available for all to use, and several individual mobile phone
| companies can use it and pay for its upkeep.
| motohagiography wrote:
| This doesn't really solve a problem anyone had that fixed
| location Starlink and Rogers' LTE network didn't solve already,
| and I would rather have bought a non-Rogers account, as the
| telcos here are oligarchs. Post pandemic, high speed in rural
| areas has been great for working from home, and bringing some new
| money into dying towns, but from a conservation perspective, I
| think the deal is an environmental disaster.
|
| Even though I'm sure it's nice for people to be able to post
| selfies from national parks, it will also exacerbate a growing
| tension between rural residents and the increasing number of
| tourists who mainly loiter in their cars and beside the road,
| have tailgates on peoples lawns, tresspass, and make a general
| nuissance of themselves - as distinct from hikers, campers, and
| trippers who are there to appreciate remote areas instead of
| merely using them as a platform for their instagram photos.
| devindotcom wrote:
| The capability here is for 911 connectivity in areas where
| signal doesn't reach, and emergency notifications for things
| like extreme weather events or during power outages.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > ... as the telcos here are oligarchs.
|
| There's one part of Canada that pays about half of what
| everyone else pays for cellular service - thats Saskatchewan.
| Because Saskatchewan has a government-run cell carrier,
| SaskTel.
|
| Canada just needs a federal crown corporation to offer cell
| service.
| VancouverMan wrote:
| > Canada just needs a federal crown corporation to offer cell
| service.
|
| Canada Post Corporation exists, yet sending and receiving
| letters/parcels is expensive, slow, and often inconvenient
| throughout Canada.
|
| The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists, yet the
| Canadian news and media landscape is severely lacking in
| quality (and in my experience, CBC typically has the lowest-
| quality content).
|
| VIA Rail Canada Inc. exists, yet passenger rail travel is
| expensive, slow, inconvenient, and quite limited throughout
| Canada.
|
| Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation exists, yet housing
| is incredibly expensive throughout Canada.
|
| Yet another federal Crown corporation isn't the answer.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > Canada Post Corporation exists, yet sending and receiving
| letters/parcels is expensive, slow, and often inconvenient
| throughout Canada.
|
| Very inexpensive and accessible, and private alternatives
| exist. Canada Post actually does a great job all things
| considered. Do you really think you can get a letter to
| Nunavut for $1.07 faster by private courier?
|
| Canada Post topped Canada's Most Trusted Brands list in
| 2020. [2]
|
| > The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation exists, yet the
| Canadian news and media landscape is severely lacking in
| quality (and in my experience, CBC typically has the
| lowest-quality content).
|
| Completely disagree on that one, and entirely opinion.
|
| > VIA Rail Canada Inc. exists, yet passenger rail travel is
| expensive, slow, inconvenient, and quite limited throughout
| Canada.
|
| It's actually very inexpensive - you can get from Ottawa to
| Toronto for like $100 CAD round trip - but yes slower than
| it could be, because the government chose not to invest in
| it. However, it has recently, and HFR along the corridor is
| going to be a material improvement.
|
| As is they are much cheaper than driving, faster than
| driving, waaaay cheaper than flying and sometimes faster.
|
| That said they made the list of Canada's Most Trusted
| Brands in the Travel category in 2022 so obviously not
| everyone agrees. [1]
|
| > Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation exists, yet
| housing is incredibly expensive throughout Canada.
|
| The job of CMHC is not to make housing affordable. That's
| the job of municipalities and zoning rules. The job of CMHC
| is to finance homes which they do a fantastic job of.
|
| This doesn't make any more sense than blaming Fannie Mae
| and Freddie Mac for the high rent prices in San Francisco.
|
| Really doesn't make sense to judge them on something that
| isn't their job.
|
| > Yet another federal Crown corporation isn't the answer.
|
| So why does Saskatchewan have cell service that costs half
| what everyone else is paying? Sounds like it might be.
|
| What I would say is just like SaskTel in Saskatchewan, if
| you don't want to use it, don't sign up. But for me, I'd be
| onboard in a heartbeat and you'd love them too as they
| pushed down the cost of cellular service even if you chose
| not to. Rogers, Bell and Telus plans are similarly way
| cheaper in Saskatchewan because they have to actually
| compete for once.
|
| [1] https://www.uvic.ca/gustavson/brandtrust/assets/docs/fi
| nal--...
|
| [2] https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/cpc/en/our-
| company/ab...
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Canada Post has never lost one of my parcels. Can't say the
| same for UPS.
| martinald wrote:
| Is this considered a good deal? 100GB data on SaskTel for
| $140/month? In the UK you can get that for ~PS10/month,
| $17CAD.
|
| And before everyone starts, no, geography doesn't really make
| a huge difference in cost of providing the service. In remote
| rural areas you can get away with putting one tower up with
| LTE800 or another low frequency carrier, which will probably
| cover 20km in each direction from the cell site. Dense places
| are much more expensive to serve, requiring cell sites every
| <1km with a multitude of high and low frequency carriers.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'm not sure I see a 100GB plan on their website, a link
| might be useful.
|
| However SaskTel charges $35/month for a 5GB data-only plan
| while Rogers charges $60. They also have a $90CAD 60GB plan
| which Rogers would charge _checks notes_ $180 for.
|
| So is it an objectively good deal, no. It is however half
| the national average.
| bbarnett wrote:
| _20km in each direction from the cell site._
|
| But this is a tiny, tiny distance in Canada... which has
| more rural roads than probably all of Europe.
| ryanmentor wrote:
| This is a wild take that actually makes too much sense.
|
| I agree, let's do it!
| rikthevik wrote:
| I'm a Saskatchewan resident. It's easy to grumble about the
| phone company, but Sasktel does a great job. We're a huge
| low-density province, but with the crown corp mandates, small
| towns in Saskatchewan have excellent cell and fibre service.
| There's no way a private company invests like that.
| Saskatchewan gets better and faster service for less money.
|
| We also have a provincial auto insurer, SGI. The prices for
| car insurance in Alberta or Ontario are ludicrous in
| comparison. The power and natural gas crowns are decent, as
| far as I can tell.
|
| https://twitter.com/wingkarli/status/1582019472315289601 >
| Canada is just five big banks, two grocery chains, and three
| telecom giants in a puffer down jacket.
|
| I'm not sure if federal crowns would be any better, but some
| competition would be a start.
| cwillu wrote:
| Don't forget their fiber-to-the-home that started in 2012.
| joseph_grobbles wrote:
| [dead]
| johnea wrote:
| Not a very informative article. Most of these SpaceX deals are
| years in the future.
|
| I posted a link to AST's recent first ever demonstration of an
| actual satellite to cell phone voice call, and it didnt even make
| it onto the IRC feed. I link here again:
|
| https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230425005532/en/AST...
|
| https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/ast-spacemobile-first...
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/someone-just-made-the-first-ev...
|
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-ever-space-based-voice-...
|
| This was an actual voice call between an unmodified cell phone
| and a satellite, not an announcement...
| roneythomas6 wrote:
| AST is already integrated to Nokia's 5G core and Bell in Canada
| and AT&T in US have signed up with AST for satellite coverage.
| Nokia is the supplier for both Bell and AT&T 5g core. Also with
| 3GPP R17 has support for Non-Terrestrial Networks(NTN)
| sroussey wrote:
| Lynk.world did it a while ago (connecting to 3/4 G phone direct
| from satellite). SMS a couple years ago, voice a year ago. The
| are definitely working the market for base sms/data first. It's
| easier to deal with hiccups than it is with voice. I doubt
| anyone will offer voice at first, just universal data roaming.
|
| All these players are trying to secure deals right now[1]. They
| sent up more sats this year[2].
|
| [1] https://lynk.world/news/lynk-and-vodafone-ghana-sign-
| contrac...
|
| [2] https://lynk.world/news/lynk-launches-worlds-2nd-and-3rd-
| com...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-04-26 23:00 UTC)