Ontario Cancels, Then Restores $100 Million Starlink Contract Over Trump’s Ignorant Tariff Threats
from the very-briefly-had-an-ethical-backbone dept
SpaceX’s Starlink service can be a big improvement for those completely out of range of broadband access. But contrary to what many Republicans and c-tier comedians turned conspiracy podcasters imply, Starlink is not magic. And it comes with a growing list of caveats. Including the increasingly unhinged behavior and far right political alliances of its conspiratorial CEO.
The technology has been criticized for harming astronomical research and the ozone layer. Starlink customer service is largely nonexistent. It’s too expensive for the folks most in need of reliable broadband access. The nature of satellite physics and capacity means slowdowns and annoying restrictions are inevitable, and making it scale to meet real-world demand is many years away.
Still, many politicians seem under the impression that Starlink is some kind of quick, permanent, and magical fix for the lack of rural broadband access or their failure to push 5G wireless and fiber into unserved neighborhoods. It’s simply not.
There’s also the small fact the CEO of the company is a raging conspiratorial bigot cozying up to and installing right wing dictatorships the world over. That was apparently very briefly a problem for Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who initially said the imposition of Donald Trump’s ignorant tariffs was causing the Province to tear up a $100 Million (Canadian) contract with Starlink:
Ford then announced that that the deal was back on after Trump temporarily backed off the threat after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada promised a bunch of things that weren’t really new: like plans to station 10,000 “frontline personnel” at the 5,500-mile-long Canada-U.S. border.
So Ford didn’t want to “do business with people hellbent on destroying our economy,” but he did apparently want to do business with a racist, sexist, opportunist with a head full of conspiracy theories, currently aiding an authoritarian coup of his Southern trading neighbor.
Trump’s tariff threats are best viewed as classic mobster shit. He’ll impose random and unpredictable violence on you and your business or family unless you sheepishly approach him, hat in hand, with a growing list of erratic concessions. In this case Trump didn’t gain much of anything beyond Canada’s willing participation in Trump’s fear-mongering border hysteria kayfabe.
Still, this is likely the first of many such feints, so calling any of this a “win” for anyone (outside of avoiding the worst case scenario that was likely never real to begin with) feels like a stretch.
It’s curious that Ontario and Doug Ford are still ok with Starlink despite (waves around) everything else, including Musk’s ongoing oligarchic coup of U.S. governance, the rabid racism, the undermining of public health advice, the widespread support for radical far right politics, the rampant misogyny, the labor abuses, the alleged sexual harassment, and the broad, sustained global jackassery.
Even Musk’s problematic politics aside (a huge aside), at the very least his erratic nature is bad for business and economic stability. And tariffs or not, you’d think that people who respect human dignity and basic global stability would stop throwing money at such a preposterous asshole, or his expensive, environment-harming half solution for remote broadband access.
Again, as Starlink signs more and more partners and reaches capacity constraints, the already pricey service is going to be subject to all manner of new slowdowns and restrictions not seen on wireless broadband. Assuming Musk can keep a steady parade of low Earth satellites consistently in orbit. And doesn’t destroy the ozone layer. Neither the ethical nor practical sacrifices have ever been worth it.
Filed Under: canada, democracy, doug ford, elon musk, low earth satellite, ontario, starlink
Companies: spacex, starlink
Comments on “Ontario Cancels, Then Restores $100 Million Starlink Contract Over Trump’s Ignorant Tariff Threats”
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Well, that’s a whole other thing in Ontario (and Canada in general). Per Telecom Order CRTC 2024-261, re-approved by order 2025-13, Bell Canada can charge third-party fibre wholesale rates of $68.94/month for service from 3 Mbit/s to 1500 Mbit/s, or $78.03 for up to 3000 Mbit/s. And they’re supposedly ripping out phone lines, which will prevent people from ordering DSL.
For comparison, Bell’s own subsidiaries offer fibre service at like 40-50 dollars per month, and third-party wholesalers offer (slow) DSL and (fast but unreliable) cable at those prices.
I don’t know how much power Ontario has in relation to telecom stuff. I guess some, if they’ve got this Starlink contract. With the feds doing nothing (except approving) as the telecom oligopolies buy up all their smaller competitors, the provinces should be trying to do whatever they can. Put open-access terms on right-of-way agreements, directly fund competitor buildouts, use anti-trust law, etc.
(“5G wireless”, though? Techdirt writes frequently about how it’s little more than hype. Thus far, there’s little evidence it can replace proper internet infrastructure. It seems even more dubious than Starlink, which could at least be usable in remote areas.)
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Slapped Back Into Reality
The free trade system with which the United States has embraced for the past many decades is a huge drain on the American economy, and is a massive boon to the foreign economies which export to us. It is such a bad deal for the U.S. that most foreign nations will quickly cave to demands. Ontario almost immediately realized on which side its bread is buttered .
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ok bro
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“Caved”, lol.
Tell me what was new in Canada’s “concessions” since they first announced this plan in December.
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Yeah, everyone who thinks Trump pulled off a huge coup here either doesn’t know or doesn’t want to know that the deal Canada “announced” here was reached in the waning days of the Biden administration. If anyone “caved” to the threat of enacting tariffs that would destroy the economy, it was Donald Trump.
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The thing about all that ‘thisvis stuff that was already agreed to’ line of thinking is, the entire reason it was done in the first place was an attempt to head this off at the pass. That’s why the billion dollar announcement about fighting something that was already under control, and which is in any case the U.S.’s responsibility to deal with, was made after Trump was elected and not beforehand.
Confirming it in order to back off a tariff threat for a month max seems like a poor trade to me. This is especially true given that, see the article we’re commenting on for example, our governments are likely to squander the window of opportunity.
Trump should’ve been told to go hang and eat the actual consequences of his threat; it’s the only true way to stop the next one.
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Why, it’s almost as if the United States is one of the richest countries in the world and can therefore afford to share its wealth with the rest of the world in a way that ultimately benefits all parties. Imagine that~.
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If folks want to donate and share their wealth with other countries, I say they should be free to do so. But it isn’t the job of the United States to prop up other nations. It should operate for the benefit of it’s own citizens. Bring back manufacturing to provide solid jobs to regular workers, and reduce reliance on supply disruptions from far away places.
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That’s capitalism, baybee
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And how does slapping tariffs on friendly countries, thereby raising the spectre of a trade war with those countries that will harm the economy by raising prices on numerous consumer goods, help the citizens of the United States?
Yeah, see, here’s the problem with that: The people who run the corporations that would provide those jobs are greedy as fuck. People are worrying about the price of food in the wake of Trump’s deportation plans because those prices will go up if the companies providing the food have to hire people who will want to work at or above minimum wage. No C-suite executive would ever think to cut their own pay so lower-paid workers can be compensated fairly for their labor. That ain’t how American capitalism works.
Manufacturing jobs left the country because corporations found it cheaper/easier/“better” to move those jobs out of the country and rake in extra profits. If those jobs move back here, the corporations will raise prices on their goods to ensure those profits stay at that level while also complying with worker compensation laws. That’s how American capitalism works.
You might think the way things work now isn’t wholly beneficial to the United States. But you seem to forget that the United States is part of the same world as all those other countries you think should be metaphorically groveling at the feet of the U.S. The world is better off with the United States cooperating with, rather than trying to wholly dominate, global trading and the world economy.
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Those other countries aren’t so friendly. Particularly evidenced by Ontario’s initial reaction. The basic formula, however, is this: a restaurant worker earning $15 per hour doesn’t care if the price of a loaf of bread increases from $2 to $4, as long as he can upgrade to a $45 per hour union manufacturing job.
There are many industries with high profit margins. Perhaps textiles are not. But automotive, aerospace, and semiconductor are, among others. I agree with you that the typical c-suite management is greedy. However, if they could have increased prices, they would have done so already. Companies are not secretly keeping prices low out of the goodness of their heart. Americans saw no price benefits as manufacturing was moved abroad, and will likely see a minimal increase after any repricing occurs.
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Why, it’s almost as if people who could be negatively affected by the rash decision-making of an elderly man-child with more power than he deserves would want to retaliate in kind. Imagine that~.
That job isn’t coming back to the States unless you’re willing to see the prices of every automobile jump a few thousand dollars to offset “necessary spending” (i.e., paychecks) and keep profit margins where they are now. That’s how American capitalism works: C-suite execs and rich-ass stockholders will never sacrifice their bank accounts so plebians like you and I could have a job with a living wage.
There’s two reasons they haven’t:
And if you think moving those jobs back to the U.S. will do anything but raise those prices, you’re not thinking like an American capitalist—you’re dreaming like a fool who doesn’t know shit about capitalism.
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Tell us, oh wise oracle of the facts-optional reality, why should anyone be friendly towards someone who threatened them?
Tell us, oh wise oracle of the facts-optional reality, who is going to replace that restaurant worker at $15/h while still being able to afford the increased cost of living?
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A lot of manufacturing has been brought back, and that will probably continue. But it’s automated manufacturing, because US labor is too expensive. Manufacturing jobs are just not coming back on a large scale.
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“Almost” seems like a good word, because what does it mean for a “country” to be rich? A subset of the citizens have a shitload of money, but the country has been going deeper and deeper into debt since 1974.
The country could be rich, were it willing to extract money from those citizens in the form of taxes, but those have been dropping as the national debt grows. (The highest marginal income tax rate was above 90% from 1944 through 1963, going as high as 94%; it’s 37% now, but I hear people manage to avoid that. I don’t expect federal taxes to get higher in the next 4 years.)
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I think you need to be “Slapped Back Into Reality”…
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Did you ever decide whether publishing names is doxxing or transparency?
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Now now, you know Koby doesn’t like answering simple questions.
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It’s tough, being an unpaid professional troll.
And so few companies out there willing to hire them…
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I dunno. SpaceX, Facebook, and ExTwitter all seem to have openings.
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[quote]The free trade system with which the United States has embraced for the past many decades is a huge drain on the American economy[/quote]
as I’m sure it’s been pointed out but I’m not reading every reply: America, by far, gets the better end of that deal and has for the last 50 years. We import all of the benefits of exported labor while exporting the inflation that comes with having an economy that is based around manufacturing goods at below their true market value.
So upsetting that is the dumbest thing one can do if you still plan on having a disposable goods economy.
I know there is a fair amount of (admittedly deserved) dislike of Musk these days. However, let us step back a minute and consider what has been accomplished by SpaceX with their Starlink.
For areas of low population density, it is nothing short of a godsend. It is the first time where the Internet became consistently usable, and was not a source of worry. I, and three other neighbours use it consistently without (significant) issue. It allows rural residents to actually play on the same field as their urban brethren.
It was only after Starlink was entering the scene that the legacy providers even attempted to provide viable service. Despite receiving numerous government grants, their offerings are of an order of magnitude worse at a cost over one half of Starlink, and at reliability levels far inferior to Starlink. Their subscriber numbers are falling like a stone. This, at least in my mind, is a perfect example of market disruption.
The most galling aspect is the unnecessary nature of this all. The power lines (owned by one Crown Corporation) contain fibre optics (which is used for internal communication). Despite having ample available bandwidth, the power company will not allow other use, as they do not wish to compete with the telephone company (another Crown Corporation).
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As far as I know, SaskTel is the only Canadian telephone company that’s a crown corporation. The other prairie provinces used to have crown telecom corporations, but that ended in the “privatization” wave of the 1990s.
I’m also not sure what you mean about power companies. Telecom Ottawa, a former fibre provider, was owned by Hydro Ottawa before 2008; Hydro Ottawa was and is the electricity provider owned by the City of Ottawa. They apparently served “schools, hospitals, and telecommunications carriers, as well as federal, provincial, and municipal offices.” Not private residences, unfortunately, but it wasn’t just for internal use. (That division was purchased by Atria, which itself was then purchased by Rogers.)
Hydro One is the private successor of a former crown corporation (Ontario Hydro). They own Acronym Solutions, formerly Hydro One Telecom, and have fibre across the province. Again, it’s not just for internal use, but was never available to individuals; only businesses.
You’re right about the StarLink contract being, at best, a questionable policy choice. The contract’s restored for 30 days, but then what? Trump will likely still be President, and still be making threats. This would be a great time for Ontario Premier Ford to announce a made-in-Ontario network, to give jobs to network technicians and affordable Internet access to the public; probably an open-access network, in line with the business-friendly image the party wants to project (if done right, we could end up with many small ISPs competing).
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It’s pretty common to hang a multi pair single mode fiber in the static line of transmission lines to use for differential protection, SCADA, and sometimes enterprise networks out to substations and generating plants. Lacking this, it’s common to use microwave, and decreasingly leased lines. It would be pretty straightforward to setup a ISP, use a couple of those pairs for your backhaul, then start hanging fiber on your distribution system. A number of companies are doing that to support AMI for for meter reading.
But the thing is, a bunch of utilities tried to become technology/telecom companies during the dot com runup, and it killed a few and put a bunch in very bad financial situations. Read about Montana Power for some backstory there. With this history regulators and the companies themselves are very hesitant to dip their toes in the water.
There are joint use requirements in Canada for poles, and I’ve heard of joint use for transmission right of way in California, but I’ve never heard of joint use of Transmission towers. But it could probably be done, because frankly I’m not impressed with utility companies technical or business savvy to provide isp solutions. They’re just not particularly creative, they are very slow to adopt new technology, and customer choice is a completely unfamiliar concept for them. I’d rather have someone else hang the fiber on the infrastructure, ideally a coop, nonprofit or municipal thing.
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Right, but “dot com runup” is the important phrase there. They massively over-built at a time when most people didn’t have internet access at all, and those who did were happy with early DSL and DOCSIS—damn fast compared to the dial-up we were used to! (Hell, I’m still happy with my 10 Mbit/s DSL. It’s way faster than a T1 line, which was all I ever wanted.)
I think a successful (residential) plan would look quite different. Do the work on demand, or as subsidies become available, or when work’s being done on a pole anyway. Fund it using connection fees more than cheap credit. Importantly, try to avoid becoming anything resembling an ISP. For example, let an actual ISP buy a fiber from my house to my electrical substation, and pay for some space and power for their termination equipment; maybe rent another fibre to get to a more central location.
The electrical utilities have lots of people who know how to put cables on poles and through conduits. And most companies who’ve tried it since the dot-com crash have actually been quite successful—as noted in a previous comment, sometimes selling their fibre networks, sometimes continuing to operate them profitably. You’re right that the networks were often started for internal use—a network that mirrors the power grid, while being mostly unaffected by distance and nearby electricity, is quite handy—but I don’t think many utilities have been able to resist the extra profits of renting the excess fibres for other uses (“excess” because running 144 fibres isn’t much more expensive than running one).
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The thing with that runup is that the overbuilt dark fiber system that was built and then sold at pennies on the dollar and really fueled the next decade of growth in many ways. That’s why I think a coop or municipal offering is better. Getting it out there will stimulate growth in your town. Also, it prevents exploitive pricing in underserved areas.
I also would stay away from using utility crews to hang fibers where possible. They are often 5x more expensive.
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The return on fibre in rural settings is slim. Residential customers are not looking to pay monthly business plan rates. While talking about power and utilities, many municipal power companies had business telcom spinoffs. Almost always exclusive for business, they would provide fibre, cable using poles the company owned. With that mostly gone, arial lines often have engineering reports and agreements for use just to hang fibre, making the costs only worthwhile for business entities.
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Hydro Ottawa’s subsidiary was a municipal offering, basically, as the municipality was the ultimate owner.
But what exactly are you suggesting? That municipalities become a retail ISP? That they offer wholesale access? Personally, I think wholesaling is a good model, because it leaves the government out of deciding internet-usage policies. And if done correctly, it can allow a small ISP to service an “underserved area” on the other side of the province, or outside the province. (“Correctly” primarily meaning that the user-facing ISP can choose an aggregated or de-aggregated model.)
Sure, that’s fair. My general idea is more about leaving space for fibre, maybe sharing underutilized bucket trucks and trenchers, and doing whatever work can be squeezed in cheaply when running electrical wires. Like, if the utility company needs one fibre for SCADA, run a bundle instead. But if someone who already has electricity just needs fibre, a different class of worker could be used.
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It was Sasktel to which I was referring. However, I did not believe most of the readers would be familiar with such.
SaskPower (the Crown Corporation responsible for the majority of electrical power generation and transmission within the province) owns and operates the lines (including the fibre optic components). It was their CEO who informed me that they did not wish to “compete” with Sasktel (how that would be possible is beyond my comprehension). While I cannot fault SaskPower for not wishing to enter a field with which they were unfamiliar, the reasonable suggestion of a joint enterprise with SaskTel resulted in no response.
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It appears that this last year SaskPower and SaskTel (along with other partners) have started to do just as I suggested.
For this, naturally, I shall take complete credit…
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The context here is “internet access in Ontario”, so it’s a little confusing to be talking about a non-Ontario thing without mentioning that.
Still, thanks for providing a point of comparison, and for getting those companies into the internet access business. Are they doing anything to help with residential internet access, or is this yet another business-to-business thing? (Large businesses don’t seem to have any real trouble getting access.)
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Counterpoint: Do the hill people actually do anything productive with Internet access? Or did we ruin Low Earth Orbit just so troglodytes can share fascist memes?
At this point interacting in any way with any business with ties to Musk should be avoided because ethics, morals and human rights. Unless of course you are interacting with them to destroy the guy.
Starlink-sourced attacks continue to increase rapidly
“Rapidly”, as in “at a rate much greater than the rate of Starlink deployments”. The Internet’s operational community has noticed this and is wondering just what kind of inexperienced and incompetent chumps are managing that network. Some people are deploying filters in order to bandlimit the problem, others are discussing outright blocks.
There’s no excuse for this: the problems Starlink is exhibiting have been well known for over twenty years. They should have been solved before Starlink was switched on, but apparently – like everything else in Musk’s world – there was a presumption that what they didn’t know must not be important.
And on top of all this: Musk’s history of whining, bullying, threats and litigation has been duly noted. So instead of a coordinated community effort there are a thousand individual ones, NONE of which are being publicly announced.
Even if you are willing to ignore everything else about Mr. Musk...
… he is still a key figure in a regime fully intent on fucking with us. That contract — and indeed, any other business being done with the Musk complex– should’ve stayed gone. This horseshit needs to have permanent consequences or these people are just going to try it again.
The struggle is against the desparate hope that things will just return to ‘normal’, but they won’t. This is the new normal, and the only way to check it is to start punching back.
I have no love for Doug Ford, but if he says “this contract is cancelled until X happens”, and then X happens, and he reinstates the contract, that means he’s doing what’s necessary to keep his credibility.
He didn’t say “The contract is cancelled until Elon Musk stops being a fascist asshole deliberately aiding a coup in another country”. Maybe he should have, but he didn’t. If Ford just changed his demands all the time, why would anybody comply with any of them?
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I’ll just add to this…
People to find that curious obviously aren’t up on Ford family history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ford
Remember Rob Ford, the mayor of Toronto? He made international headlines a few years back (well, it’s been 12 years now…). Brother Doug had his back (and likely his drugs).
This type of brouhaha is nothing new to Doug; he’s been doing similar reactive things his entire political career, since 2010. He seemed to be better suited to running the family international grocery label business, which he handed over to his brother Randy in 2010.
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Canadians are such cucks. Elon’s got ’em by their tiny balls lol.
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Don’t you mean “Trump’s got ’em by their tiny balls”? Because Elon Musk isn’t (and can’t ever be) the President of the United States.
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Well, not technically anyway…
There’s at least a dark joy in seeing people still trying to convince themselves that the liberals weren’t really just fascists with better manners all along, and their crusades against the actual left were going to make a world in which the Weimar Republic looks like a utopia.
Dance little puppets, dance
In this case Trump didn’t gain much of anything beyond Canada’s willing participation in Trump’s fear-mongering border hysteria kayfabe.
I wouldn’t say that, he also just got confirmation that if push comes to shove Canada will blink first and let him use them like good little tools for any PR stunts he wants to engage in.
Connecting North of the moddle of nowhere
It was on Nov 14,2024 that the Onatrio Gov’t awarded Starlink the contract.
In contrast to some of the other Ontario Connects-Bringing high-speed internet access to every community in Ontario initiatives, spending C$100M to bring connectivity to 15000 people in some of Ontario’s most remote communities is a prudent investment. A different C$30M project only enabled 670 connections across 5 remote communities.
How remote? Some communities to be served are up to 500 miles North of Thunder Bay (which itself Canadians think is way North) across barren tundra. They are not connected to the power grid and generator fuel can only be flown in or trucked along ice roads only in months when the ground (or lakes) are sufficently frozen. If it’s too expesnsive to supply a year round road or power, forget fibre!
Unlike US providers claiming they won’t/can’t connect fiber to homes mere blocks away from existing connections or charging $10K+, this is legit uneconomical.
That said, Ford had little choice to acquience im the optimistic hope the tariff reversal is permanent. That’s how diplomatic gestures work, even if the other side no longer understands diplomacy; it’s the polite thing to do.
However, Canadians should ask Ontario and Canada why they did not choose to invest in a Telesat solution? Telesat is a Canadian gov’t established satellite communications company created to provide remote connectivity. They launched the world’s first commercial domestic communications satellite in geostationary orbit and also offered the first direct-to-home (DTH) television service. If this carries on, time to look at domoestic alternatives.
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Nobody west of Southern Ontario thinks of Thunder Bay as ‘North’. It’s actually south of the 49th!
Vancouver is further north, let alone Calgary (hi) or Edmonton or Winnipeg.
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This discussion is about Ontario.
As such, the “oh look, Vancouver is further north than Chicoutimi-Jonquière, or North Bay, or Sudbury…” observations are a bit off-topic.
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… and evryone in Canada knows Toronto is the Centre of the Universe. Pretty much anything outside the golden horseshoe is considered “thw boonies”. Doea wveryone in cottage country have FTTH, or FTTC ?