The space exploration company SpaceX has applied to offer high-speed internet to Canadians living in remote areas by beaming it to them from satellites in space, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported.
SpaceX, owned by Elon Musk, applied with Canada’s telecom regulator, the Canadian Radio-television & Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), for a Basic International Telecommunications Services (BITS) license. The license is a requirement for any company that wants to provide “telecommunications traffic between Canada and any other country.”
Once the company acquires the BITS license, it could theoretically offer more wireless telecommunication services, including voice and data plans. However, for now, the application is focusing on high-speed internet, beaming specifically into businesses and rural homes via SpaceX’s existing network of near-Earth satellites.
Canada isn’t the only place SpaceX is planning to offer internet service. The company is also planning to provide high-speed internet in the US later on this year through a subsidiary called “Starlink” before “rapidly expanding to near-global coverage of the populated world by 2021,” SpaceX wrote on its website. According to CRTC’s data, up to 40% of Canadians who live in rural areas don’t have access to high-speed internet, and the reason for that may be because what is available is too expensive.
In the election last fall, the governing Liberals vowed to ensure that 95% of Canadian businesses and homes would have high-speed internet by 2026, and every Canadian household would have access to it by 2030. The coronavirus pandemic has increased the importance of the issue, as millions of Canadians are forced to work from home.
