Comment by def8cefe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by def8cefe | Hacker News Reader

>"I live in rural Ontario where there are no providers that can provide internet at a fast and affordable price," said Mahdi Hossinzehi, a resident of Cedar Valley, Ont., about 30 kilometres north of Toronto. "With fast, reliable and affordable internet, rural areas will benefit immensely economically, and a lot of younger people won't end up leaving for the city."

>Carol Jobity of Adjala-Tosorontio, just west of Barrie, Ont., is similarly supportive.

>"Please approve this," Jobity wrote to the regulator. "We're in support 100 per cent."

>Iqaluit resident Brandt Chu said he's in favour of the proposal because of how remote life can be in Nunavut.

I find it a bit amusing that 2/3 of the people complaining live in municipalities within commuting distance of Toronto. Surely CBC could have found comments from more than one Canadian who actually lives in a remote rural area, Barrie and Cedar Valley do not count. Those two areas would be better served by a wireless ISP, unlike truly remote areas which make up large swaths of the province.

Internet deserts can change drastically from block to block.

It's not an environmental thing that gets transferred by geography so comparing the commute distance doesn't make sense. More accurate correlation would be household income in the neighborhoods there is lack of Internet.

From your name you live in LA. I live in and know the area I am talking about. Thanks for the suggestion.

As for household income proximity to Toronto is an indicator of wealth in itself.

I don't mean this in a belittling way, but if you are from California your concept of 'remote' is vastly different to ours in Ontario, where we have less than half the population in ~2.5x the landmass, and that population is mostly in the Toronto area. Now imagine what 'remote' must mean in the less populated provinces and territories (Ontario is the most populated province).

Just commenting again to try and make it up to all the people who buried my other reply. Let me go a bit more in depth.

> It's not an environmental thing that gets transferred by geography so comparing the commute distance doesn't make sense.

Proximity to Canada's economic and telecommunications hub (Toronto) does in fact influence access to the Internet.

>More accurate correlation would be household income in the neighborhoods there is lack of Internet.

There is access to the Internet in the two communities I mentioned, which is why I brought it up in the first place. The access isn't as good as downtown Toronto or some areas in the suburbs, but in comparison to actual remote areas it is fantastic.

My entire point in the comment that you replied to is mentioning Barrie and Cedar Valley in the same breath as Iqaluit, a place so remote even access to basic foods is expensive, is absurd.

I know you don't know where any of these places are.

Counter point: Georgetown ON has great internet, Halton Hills, not so much. And it’s a 10 minute drive from Mississauga...

So it’s easy on a rural road even near a big city to have very, very few options if the cable company didn’t bother to run a wire down your particular street.

Not sure if it has changed since, but here’s another example: https://www.theifp.ca/news-story/8404569-xplornet-north-halt...

I imagine we’ll hear fewer stories like this within 5 years now, but it’s been a long time coming — even if you have LTE service, it’s not cheap enough for data-hungry TVs and PCs.

There are less options than the city in Halton Hills for sure but they still have access to LTE, DSL and sometimes cable.

My point isn't that these areas are fine and don't need better service, my point is they should not be compared to truly remote areas without even basic cell service (there are a lot of these if you drive north about 6 hours).

Getting annoying that people are trying to rebut a claim I didn't make when all I'm doing is bitching about the CBC in keeping with Canadian tradition.

My parents live within 15 minute drive from the “Silicon Valley of Canada” aka Kanata. It is a major telco equipment hub.

They don’t have internet service available.

Kanata isn't even a city, it has a population of 90,000. Where did you hear it was the 'Silicon Valley of Canada'? All your Internet traffic routes through the Toronto Internet Exchange.

The remote areas you refer to are a small fraction of the population compared to the GTA (greater Toronto area.) Should a highly visible revenue-oriented corporation really aim to improve connectivity out in the boonies?

>Should a highly visible revenue-oriented corporation really aim to improve connectivity out in the boonies?

That's the only place the service will function, unless you're using it in a park or field somewhere in the GTA... so yeah I guess.

It'll also function just fine on your roof - the issue with population density is just that bandwidth is limited per area, and so there's much lower bandwidth per person in metro areas.

>It'll also function just fine on your roof

Assuming your roof is the same height or higher than nearby roofs and other obstructions.

> Should a highly visible revenue-oriented corporation really aim to improve connectivity out in the boonies?

The target market for Starlink -- according to Musk -- is "the 3% to 4% of the population who are hardest to reach through terrestrial networks".

So yes, "the boonies" are the market. Almost no one reading this is in that market.

It seems self evident to me that the intended customers can't be urban, suburban or even exurban residences; the satellites won't be able to serve a large population of closely spaced transceivers.

Sure, if the service is likely to be most effective in areas with low population density, there is little competition for those customers, there is little marginal cost associated with making their service available to rural customers, and serving rural customers does not preclude them from serving urban customers as well.

Just curious, how does the quality/speed of service of a wireless ISP compare to a wired or satellite connection? Somewhere in between, I'd imagine?

Depends on the wireless ISP. Speaking generally, a wireless ISP has the potential to provide much better service at a much lower price. As compared to current satellite internet providers it is exponentially better, as compared to Starlink... who knows, we'll see when they release concrete information.

A fixed wireless ISP can be as fast and stable as a fiber connection or as slow as a 90s-era DSL ISP. The main problem is scaling - as you add customers, you have more users competing for a limited spectrum. To accommodate this, you have to use TDMA and other multiplexing strategies which reduce throughput and increase latency.

It's been a long time since I had to use satellite, but I'd happily take even the most oversubscribed WISP out there over satellite internet.

Starlink is much more like a WISP than traditional satellite internet. Starlink satellites orbit at 550km vs traditional satellites at 36000km.

Yeah, I can't wait to see how it performs. It's truly in a technology class of its own.

Still implies a HUGE cell, though. I have doubts that this will work well in anywhere but the very most unpopulated areas.

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