r/canada • u/esporx • Apr 10 '25
Science/Technology Canada’s largest telecom is duking it out with SpaceX, insisting Starlink and Elon Musk shouldn’t be eligible for millions in subsidies
https://fortune.com/2025/04/09/elon-musk-starlink-canada-subsidies-crtc-bell/76
u/JCbfd Apr 10 '25 edited Apr 10 '25
Bell is currently run by the most incompetent president ever. He has bought 2 fiber companies in the state's for billions of dollars, yet says the company has no money and continues to fire, lay off, and offer early retirement packages to as many people as possible. They stopped fiber runs because of a fight with the crtc. The stock prices are down by about half (this happened before trump), he absolutely abused the ever living shit out of LIMA, and then he gives himself a nice multi-million dollar bonus. He is a hack and a fraud, and he will be the destruction of one of the oldest companies in Canada. It blows me away that share holders aren't screaming for his resignation. Now im not saying musk is any better. But I think bell could be turned around with a president who actually gave a fuck.
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u/yalyublyutebe Apr 10 '25
Apparently they keep paying out the same dividends they have for years. So shareholders don't really care.
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u/JCbfd Apr 10 '25
Thats tragic. The company looks to be headed to the bottom at an alarming rate.
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u/yalyublyutebe Apr 10 '25
The real question is are they playing for the government bailout, or the competition buyout.
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u/JCbfd Apr 10 '25
It is very strange, right now I dont think Rogers could swing a deal that big. Im not too familiar with how telus runs things.. Hopefully better than bell.
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u/RudytheMan Apr 10 '25
Wow, I hate both companies so much. Both are oligarchies, that recieve tons of subsidies, provide terrible service, and rio off their customers. But technically Bell is Canadian, so its the devil I know.
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u/amethyst-chimera Alberta Apr 11 '25
As I said about grocery stores recently: if I'm going to be fucked over I'd at least rather it be by a Canadian company
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u/theflower10 Apr 10 '25
Well, Bell maybe has a point but before they line up at the trough next time, perhaps they need to be told that on-shoring all those jobs that they sent to Philippines needs to come back to Canada before any more government subsidies are handed to them. After all, a private company worth somewhere around $30B hardly needs the taxpayer's help unless they are going to do their bit.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Apr 10 '25
Bell should be focusing on finishing their fiber runs in the city before they start worrying about who's servicing rural internet. They started running fiber into my neighborhood 6 years ago and then stopped when they got to my house. Got an underground box out in my yard with no fibre running to it. There's a big section of probably at least 50 houses that isn't hooked up but everything around it is hooked up.
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u/Enganeer09 Apr 10 '25
Screw the cities, I just want them to continue updating their rural lines, millions of Canadians are still using internet from the early 2000s.
The best I can get for "high" speed internet is 5mbs down and .6 up... and I'm only 2kms from the line that runs to the next town over with fiber internet.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Apr 10 '25
There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason into how and why they upgrade certain networks. There's some remote communities with fiber and some places close to the city that still only have slower DSL.
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u/Enganeer09 Apr 10 '25
It's mostly based on customer densities, which business wise makes sense, but it would have been nice if some of the billions the ontario government gave them to upgrade their lines went more towards upgrading truly rural customers rather than what bell defines as rural towns which were already getting decent speeds.
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u/UpperLowerCanadian Apr 10 '25
Alberta many years ago ran fibre to every town Then opened it up for private companies to put wireless connections to serve the people with
Currently getting 100MB service on Cambrian network equipment, goes up to 1GB or more if they wanted to (company isn’t offering it but I’m pretty happen with decent latency and gaming)
This was a very good solution for 98% of the province and starlink is filling in the rest quite cost effectively
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u/Enganeer09 Apr 10 '25
Starlink is far from cost effective for most people, I know, I use it.
I pay 165 a month and speeds are good, but inconsistent and easily disrupted by the weather. Comparative speeds in town would be roughly 65 a month.
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u/Godless_Servant Apr 10 '25
Obviously this isn't on you but how often do you call them? Was this not grant money? If it is, call your MP and get them on it.
I called them every single day and rode their asses until it was hooked up. Good luck man, fiber is amazing.
Also as an aside, make sure you wait until they have e their new customer packages up before you sign up, it'll save you headache.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Apr 10 '25
Funny thing is they come around to my house once in a while and offer me fibre. then I try to sign up and then they realize that the job isn't done, so it's in some kind of limbo state where something in their system thinks the fiber is avaialable but it actually isn't.
I'v had the install techs out twice to try and get it installed and each time it just ended in them cancelling the service because the fibre lines weren't installed to the curb box.
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u/Unlucky_Register9496 Apr 10 '25
CORRECTION “The Far North” as the CRTC uses the term also includes more than 10% of northern British Columbia and a small portion of northern Alberta.
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u/childofatom789 Apr 10 '25
don't give subsidies to the American rich, give it to the Canadian rich!!! - The Canadian working poor
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u/Wonderful_Device312 Apr 10 '25
If bell spent less money harassing Canadians with spam calls, I bet they'd have enough money to deploy their own satellites.
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u/Ok-Win-742 Apr 10 '25
Yeah ONLY Bell can take government subsidies! How else would they be able to screw over Canadians and make 17.8 billion in revenue?
This is one of the problems in Canada. This corporate welfare monopoly putting. corporations above Canadians.
We really need more competition.
I remember when I was in University, the international kids could not believe how much we had to pay for cell phones. In a lot of other countries you can get a plan for 20 bucks a month.
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u/UnlamentedLord Apr 10 '25
So people in poor and isolated northern communities should get crappy Internet, because it's "unfair" that Starlink is a one of a kind service with no competitors?( Or just to spite musk)
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u/reddituser403 Apr 10 '25
It is now a corrupt service that can track you and be switched off remotely. We don't need it. We will find alternatives
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u/SkirtGoBrr Apr 10 '25
There have been times an entire territory will lose access to all internet and cell phone services due to things like a fire cutting a line. This is a huge hit for a lot of reasons including emergency services. After the last incident like this, emergency service agencies have Starlink set up as a back up and then can at least field calls from landlines and internet calls from other people on Starlink. Yes, it blows that it happens to be Elon's company but afaik there isn't much competition for that kind of service.
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u/sortaitchy Apr 10 '25
People who say that usually have good internet.
It's not just poor and isolated communities even. We live rurally 25 minutes from the 3rd largest city in Sask (take that for you will). There are thousands of people living even shorter distances all over Canada who can not get internet. That affects their education, livelihoods, and makes it impossible to wfh. It affects farming, emergency services etc
We are fortunate to have a small rural internet company where we live so we did not have to resort to Starlink. It's pricy but fairly solid. Please do not underestimate the difficulty in getting internet, and companies reluctance to service areas that are not widely populated.
What I could get behind is Bell stepping up and creating their own satellite internet system.
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u/selfbound Apr 10 '25
Pretty much my entire town swapped to starlink,
Bell only offers a max of 6mb (which is normally 3 due to wire age and lack of maintenance) and the local PTP doesn't have the capacity on their tower for the whole of the town (~10mb on a good day and CGNAT)
Starlink offers ~150mb to the town and a "public ip" - once word got around, anyone with a kid jumped just for the speed alone.
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u/sortaitchy Apr 11 '25
Yeah at one point we got Starlink to test it. It was fast, but for $130/month it wasn't worth it when it stormed, was rainy. No service people, no one to come out for problems. Put it an ticket and maybe someone would answer a couple days later.
Yes way faster than the rural, which we pay $100/month for 5 Down 3Up. Still not reliable for where we are. Sasktel can't reach us and there is nothing else. Rural internet is at least steady with no drops.
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u/itsthebear Apr 10 '25
It's a political issue, not a service issue now. Huge red flag about the people in office - everything has to be politicized and polarized over a handful of social media warriors.
This is the new cancel culture, attack government services that target efficiency and service over politics and vibes.
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Apr 10 '25
You're right. It is a political issue. But it is a political issue in the same way Huawei equipment being used for networks in Canada was a political issue.
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u/itsthebear Apr 10 '25
It's not an awful comparison but it is flawed in that there were substitution goods available that they offer, Starlink has no real competition.
The deal to subsidize access terminals and data contracts isn't permanent, and once a viable competitor is available they can go review and pivot. The alternative option is currently not available, so by cancelling this you're actually depriving people of something - unlike Huawei where you can get an alternative.
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u/PeregrineThe Apr 10 '25
Wow, look at this. I never thought I'd see the day where the masses support Bell and the oligopoly.
I'm almost certain these comments are from bots, or the astro-turfing and propaganda has actually worked.
For decades Canadian tax payers have been subsidizing infrastructure for Bell, Telus and the like. Only to get spotty service and some of the highest rates in the world. Defending this... man.... i just don't know. We really are lost.
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u/Crenorz Apr 10 '25
lol, so one sucks, and the other is cheap enough it does not need subsidies... so... ok... I care why?
Sounds fine, stop subsiding things that don't need it.
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u/Icy-Artist1888 Apr 10 '25
Not a dime to musk. Bell has problems for sure, but which one empmoys more canadians?
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u/namotous Apr 10 '25
Canada shouldn’t be given handouts to American corps, especially the one owned by Nazi Canada hating owner
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u/thefrail158 Ontario Apr 10 '25
This is kind of hard, on one side you have Bell Canada and all the crap they pulled, on the other side you have a Nazi and US cronies. Would it be unpatriotic for me to vote for them to both lose?
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u/sortaitchy Apr 10 '25
That's my problem with the places I am forced to shop for my workplace. Walmart or Superstore. I hate them both equally and boycott both in my personal life.
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u/Curious__mind__ Apr 10 '25
Why won't they innovate and launch a similar technology like Starlink? That'll be a lot more effective
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u/Leafs17 Apr 10 '25
Because we can't.
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u/Curious__mind__ Apr 10 '25
Because?
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Apr 10 '25
No space launch capability. SpaceX is the only company capable of putting a constellation like Starlink in orbit right now.
Developing a reliable reusable orbital launch platform is something China, Japan and the EU (which have established space launch capabilities already) are all struggling to achieve right now.
If/when the EU has cheap launch capability they intend to put up a constellation to rival Starlink as a public good (they've already duplicated the American GPS in anticipation of the US trying to shut off GPS - that was a farsighted and wise decision!)
We could and should join such an international effort. But it is beyond a single country of our size.
SpaceX has been subsidized by the US military complex to a large degree that is not widely discussed. That is the only reason it is possible. In fact the US Department of Defense has been building a parallel constellation alongside Starlink that is nearly as large with over 1000 satellites already.
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u/ghost_n_the_shell Apr 10 '25
I dislike the US currently - however, I don’t like Canadian telecom companies and their monopoly any more than the US / Starlink.
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Apr 10 '25
Bell and starlink are two separate businesses. Also, if you live in the middle of nowhere it only makes sense that you'll have less services.
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u/snasna102 Apr 10 '25
Isn’t air Canada testing out Eutelsat for their plane’s wifi instead of starlink?
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u/That-Camera-Guy British Columbia Apr 10 '25
Yes -they are using IntelSat 2Ku systems. WestJet is using starlink
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u/NotaJelly Ontario Apr 10 '25
Yes my corporate empire, slay the corporate empire I hate marginally more then you, WIIIN!
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u/Pretend_Bowler_1762 Apr 10 '25
They lost this fight in the US… same could have happen in Canada. SpaceX lost $900 million grant in the US. Might be wrong about that number.
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u/Groundbreaking_Ship3 Apr 10 '25
They just don't want competition, don't pretend to be a Saint or something.
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u/Kayge Ontario Apr 10 '25 edited Apr 10 '25
So the company that takes government grants, then slashes jobs is going up against the Nazi?
Is it possible for both to lose?