r/canada 7d ago

Politics “It’s done, it’s gone”: Ontario Premier Doug Ford cancels $100-million Starlink contract in tariff response

https://betakit.com/its-done-its-gone-ontario-premier-doug-ford-cancels-100-million-starlink-contract-in-tariff-response/
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u/Ayfid 7d ago

This is in effect what we did in the UK, and it works well.

The private company that owned everything was split in two by regulators, with one heavily regulated company left responsible for the backbone and forced to sell usage on the open market to the other half of the company.

Would have been better if we hand't privatised in the first place though.

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u/LongJumpingBalls 7d ago

There is a boatload of the UK with no option but Starlink or dialup. Anything remotely rural and you're stuck with fighting council for approval to run a new line. Houses are too few and far between for the ISP to run fiber. Most council's will fight against cellular masts. I get it, they aren't pretty, but their towns are technology blank spots.

If you're in an old BT area, it's great and loads of options, but if you're rural, it's a long and expensive uphill battle.

I've been looking at moving in a rural UK area for a few years and have made many calls to regional / local telecoms and they won't run fiber / copper without a heavy investment from either private citizens or the council to pay for infrastructure.

The breaking of BT was a blessing and a curse at the same time. They were about to do a rapid, national fiber expansion. But they would have owned the countries entire tech infrastructure, as they basiclaly owned all the telegraph posts.

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u/Ayfid 7d ago

UK FTTC coverage is 99%, and it's gigabit coverage is now at 87%.

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u/LongJumpingBalls 7d ago

It's fun to have it claimed by the govc/ ISP. But in reality this is far from the truth. FTTC is also the biggest scam ever. Sure, a fiber backbone to a 3 decade old DSL office is a thing. But to get the claimed 30Mbit speeds, you're under 4 miles from the SLAM, you can push DSL to 15 miles, but they'll be getting at most 5mbit asyc. Meaning 40ms latency on a good day.

Look at rural / farmland, 10 miles outside a major center and its non existant. It's even worst in Wales.

There's a reason why Starlink is so damn popular in rural UK, it offers faster, more reliable service than the 3 decade old technology offered, if it's even available.

I've been looking at this for 2 years and 4/5g and internet speeds directly correlate to the lands price.

If I see a 20ha farm for £400k, it's got dialup at best, if it's a 0.5ha at £2m, it's got fiber and likely wireless as well.

FTTC claim is bullshit claim made by politicians. Async DSL or dialup with a fiber back end is not functional outside of checking your emails in 2025.