French-UK Starlink Rival Pitches Canada On 'Sovereign' Satellite Service (www.cbc.ca) 45
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: A company largely owned by the French and U.K. governments is pitching Canada on a roughly $250-million plan to provide the military with secure satellite broadband coverage in the Arctic, CBC News has learned. Eutelsat, a rival to tech billionaire Elon Musk's Starlink, already provides some services to the Canadian military, but wants to deepen the partnership as Canada looks to diversify defence contracts away from suppliers in the United States.
A proposal for Canada's Department of National Defence to join a French Ministry of Defence initiative involving Eutelsat was apparently raised by French President Emmanuel Macron with Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of last year's G7 summit in Alberta. The prime minister's first question, according to Eutelsat and French defence officials, was how the proposal would affect the Telesat Corporation, a former Canadian Crown corporation that was privatized in the 1990s.
Telesat is in the process of developing its Lightspeed system, a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites for high-speed broadband. And in mid-December, the Liberal government announced it had established a strategic partnership with Telesat and MDA Space to develop the Canadian Armed Forces' military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) capabilities. A Eutelsat official said the company already has its own satellite network in place and running, along with Canadian partners, and has been providing support to the Canadian military deployed in Latvia. "What we can provide for Canada is what we call a sovereign capacity capability where Canada would actually own all of our capacity in the Far North or wherever they require it," said David van Dyke, the general manager for Canada at Eutelsat.
"We also give them the ability to not be under the control of a singular individual who could decide to disconnect the service for political or other reasons."
A proposal for Canada's Department of National Defence to join a French Ministry of Defence initiative involving Eutelsat was apparently raised by French President Emmanuel Macron with Prime Minister Mark Carney on the sidelines of last year's G7 summit in Alberta. The prime minister's first question, according to Eutelsat and French defence officials, was how the proposal would affect the Telesat Corporation, a former Canadian Crown corporation that was privatized in the 1990s.
Telesat is in the process of developing its Lightspeed system, a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) constellation of satellites for high-speed broadband. And in mid-December, the Liberal government announced it had established a strategic partnership with Telesat and MDA Space to develop the Canadian Armed Forces' military satellite communications (MILSATCOM) capabilities. A Eutelsat official said the company already has its own satellite network in place and running, along with Canadian partners, and has been providing support to the Canadian military deployed in Latvia. "What we can provide for Canada is what we call a sovereign capacity capability where Canada would actually own all of our capacity in the Far North or wherever they require it," said David van Dyke, the general manager for Canada at Eutelsat.
"We also give them the ability to not be under the control of a singular individual who could decide to disconnect the service for political or other reasons."
Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:2)
Re:Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:4, Informative)
Current president (Éric Labaye) is at least a graduated telecom engineer. He was involved in advising different governments (e.g. reform of the hospital system), but technically (as manager) and never ideologically. These are critical advantages over Musk. Mostly, Labaye is a former McKinsey board member.
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Current president (Éric Labaye) is at least a graduated telecom engineer.
Yeah, because Starlink clearly does not function well at all because Musk isn't a "graduated telecom engineer".
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Elmo likes to play politics with StarLink. For example, aiding the Russians while pretending to help the Ukrainians.
Fuck Musk and Fuck StarLink, the white supremacist network.
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Re:Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:4, Informative)
He's still a singular individual in control of the network.
If the governments of France and UK together agree, they can use their majority share and remove him. That's probably the deal that they are referring to when claiming the control is not a singular individual; there is a governmental agreement behind. So it amounts to the trust that Canada has in the words of these governments. It's up to you to judge, but Europeans are known to go a far way to hold their international agreements, and all the three in question have been close allies since WWI.
The singular individual seems to not have messed up his previous appointments. The fact that a majority of France+UK is required means if either of France or UK would switch to a governing party unfavourable to Canada, one single vote still could not replace the current guy with someone against Canada.
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Re:Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:4, Insightful)
He's still a singular individual in control of the network. The article talks about "owning capacity" not "owning satellites." IMHO, it sounds like yet another LEO telecom is looking for a customer with deep pockets and a high tolerance for cost overruns.
As a Canadian, I'd be a LOT happier with French "yet another LEO telecom looking for a customer with deep pockets" than an American one.
First, the States seems eager to break NATO with its talk of Canada being the 51st state and with its stated intention to steal Greenland. Second, Elon is a flaky ketamine Karen, a Nazi, and a Technocrat who is totally supportive of the 'Technate of America' bullshit which his grandfather supported and which several of his tech broligarch buddies would like to see realized.
Tell me again - why the fuck would Canada want our critical comms infrastructure to be dependent on a US-owned, Musk-controlled company? We in the True North Strong and Free are doing everything we can to separate ourselves from the toxic dumpster fire raging south of our border - especially since the Arsonist-in-Chief has threatened to steal our sovereignty.
Re:Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:4, Informative)
Eutelsat is publicly owned. If their CEO goes of the rails (like Musk has), he will find himself without a job.
Re: Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:2)
That usually depends on majority shareholders, voting share classes, and board members. Many companies are structured in such a way that make it practically impossible to oust the CEO. For example, Facebook. Not sure about Telesat or Starlink.
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You miss an important point: The CEO of Eutelsat is an _employee_. The CEO of Facebook or Tesla is the _owner_.
Re: Eutelsat still has a CEO (Score:2)
I did not miss it. CEO ownership is an example of a difference in structure between these companies.
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Which then has a ton of rather strong implications. Comparing the two if they were similar is not useful.
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Re:Where is your NIPRNET?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Defense advice from the French, will force you to speak German. - History
France is world's #2 defence seller https://www.sipri.org/media/pr... [sipri.org] . It's certainly much smaller than USA at this respect, but that still makes it the top contender when USA isn't a reliable partner anymore.
Also, I don't see what recent (less than 80 years old, that is) data would confirm your views related to issues between France and Germany. It certainly causes friction for the common development of certain projects (FCAS) because French and German requirements are different, but I don't get in the news too many news of complaints regarding the quality of the engineering of the resulting French or French-German defence systems that are sold globally. Alright the NH90 wasn't a great helicopter.
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Defense advice from the French, will force you to speak German. - History
Also, I don't see what recent (less than 80 years old, that is) data would confirm your views related to issues between France and Germany.
Looking at WWI, and WWII, and the long history of French-German interactions, there has been a long history of contention. However, our world is different now. French-German cooperation is now relatively strong, especially in the context of the concerning threats from Russia, China, and now the US. The French and Germans are locked together economically and in other ways, but it's the external threats from the Big 3 that now forces France and Germany to be more cooperative.
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Defense advice from the French, will force you to speak German. - History
Bear in mind, the reason that America successfully broke free of British rule was because of French support. We could not have done it without them.
Also of note: the French did not help us because they liked us, but to spite the British.
Re: Where is your NIPRNET?!? (Score:1)
Having read all comments at this point, and finding no mention of one point I think might be important; then reading TFA, and there is still no mention: Who is launching all these satellites?
Sovereign space system launched by someone else (Score:2)
Unless I'm mistaken, Canada has no orbital launch capacity on its own soil or under its own control.
If you depend on a foreign nation to launch your satellites, the operative word is still depend.
Re:Sovereign space system launched by someone else (Score:5, Informative)
If you depend on a foreign nation to launch your satellites, the operative word is still depend.
Wikipedia says "Spaceport Nova Scotia" under construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] , and second sub-orbital test rocket launched in November https://www.thecanadianpressne... [thecanadianpressnews.ca]
Re: Sovereign space system launched by someone els (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the case with most countries over the world.
At the rate Trump is alienating everyone I'm not surprised that Canada is looking for alternatives.
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He's not saber rattling he's trying to see if Congress will stop him and the Republican party is blocking any effort to prevent him from starting world War III because they're afraid they're going to lose their seats in a primary election.
If Trump invades Greenland your kids are getting drafted in his War. If you have a medical degree of any kind or medical experience you're getting drafted to regardless of how old you a
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I think Trump is just trying to escalate as long as he can so the Epstein files get less attention. This plan seems to be failing.
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I don't think people understand how crazy the people we just put in charge are.
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Well, maybe. This will be the end of US membership in NATO though (I expect the rest will continue or build a replacement) and the tactical situation does really not look good for the US. The rest of NAT has about 100x the cold-weather troops and 10x the gear. And a lot of experience using it. Hence the US may well get kicked out of Greenland militarily if they are stupid enough to try to take it. And Europe and Canada has had about enough of this clown-show.
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Europe should apply US logic here. Self defense requiring a pre-emptive move. Capture Trump and bring him to justice, flood the airwaves with images of Americans celebrating in the streets.
Seriously though, Europe has modern weapons and they do well in NATO exercises.
I get that it's fun to say that (Score:2)
Also anytime you're up wants to stop Trump their intelligence agencies could flood social media with the Epstein files and push back against Russian propaganda directed towards American voters.
Europe could easily use information warfare to shut down Trump and the fact that they're not doing it tells me that your leadership wants trump..
I suspect that Europe and European countries in general beli
Re:Sovereign space system launched by someone else (Score:5, Interesting)
If Canada thinks they need communications services, they can have them today by purchasing a membership in Eutelsat. Later when they have their own launch capability and own satellite constellation operational, they can sell their share in Eutelsat and recover their initial investment. Seems a good deal.
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Arctic? Is that where the bulk of Canadians live? I know this was decades ago, but I recall reading a National Geographic story on the US-Canadian border, which mentioned that the majority of Canadians live along that border. With this plan, the only people getting satellite internet would be the First Nation people
A
Re:Sovereign space system launched by someone else (Score:5, Insightful)
Arctic? Is that where the bulk of Canadians live?
No, but the areas of conflict we expect our military to be needed are.
While our neighbor to the South (and technically North) has a leader repeatedly looking to deploy military and paramilitary forces into developed cities, we are not. I mean... unless we need to defend ourselves from that neighbor abruptly deciding to invade us... which isn't as far-fetched as it sounds given a} said leader has repeatedly expressed desire to absorb us and b} said leader has very recently troops-on-the-ground invaded another country to remove its leader.
Also, Starlink is not an "American" company in terms of being aligned to the US government, despite Elon's role in it a year ago. When the Ukraine war broke out, Musk made it a point to emphasize that as a part of having free speech on his channels, it would not discriminate against pro-Russian views, even though Starlink doesn't offer its services in Russia. Right now, they're providing internet services to whoever has their equipment in Iran, despite the official US policy of not promoting regime change there. It's not like if US tanks hypothetically rolled into Canada, Starlink would start broadcasting Trumpian propaganda to all Canadians
It is an American company in terms of if the country on the planet most likely to attack us decides to do so, that country will be able to control it. Because that country is America. Ukraine was not being invaded by America.
Understand... we cannot fundamentally trust the US. Period.
This is not about military actions elsewhere in the world where Canadian troops may be working alongside other NATO forces. This is about military action near us. Which is more likely to involve opposing the US than not. Granting them any influence on our military would be a foolish move given the last eleven months.
And agree w/ you: looks like Canada seems incapable of taking a Canada-only route if needed, unlike US
At the moment. And getting there will take time, requiring intermediary steps, but as a nation we've seriously re-thought the idea of buying military anything from the US, just as we're ramping up to meet our NATO obligations. Funny that. A trade war and annexation rhetoric and suddenly a paying customer goes walking away, just as they decide to buy a bunch of stuff.
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"Arctic? Is that where the bulk of Canadians live? I know this was decades ago, but I recall reading a National Geographic story on the US-Canadian border, which mentioned that the majority of Canadians live along that border. With this plan, the only people getting satellite internet would be the First Nation people"
Which part of "military" did you not see in the sentence you're replying to?
If you need it spelled out more clearly, this service is intended for use by the Canadian armed forces.
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The only way the Arctic is relevant is missile attacks from Russia landing in Canada after going over the North Pole. They're not going to traverse longitudinally across Russia, the way commercial flights might. It may start from a Russian missile base in their north, go over the North Pole and land in Canada, probably in major cities like Toronto and Montreal. But there won't be soldiers skiing from Russia across the Arctic, and I'd doubt that they'd send fighter pilots either. Just ICBMs
Yeah, I know
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Yeah, then we found out what "Free Speech" means in Musk-land. Just see X for what "Free Speech" is really bringing. And if anyone threatens to stop advertising on X because they find the "free speech" appalling, they get hit with lawsuits.
Free Speech is one thing. Hate Speech is quite another and Musk has bann
Re: Sovereign space system launched by someone els (Score:2)
There is certainly a lot more free speech than before. Stories of public interest can now be shared instead of censured by the media. Like the Iranian revolution. Which btw. uses Starlink to bypass the regimes internet shutdown.
Now Bluesky is a place where you get banned for daying something negative about islam. In Iran, they are burning mosques. No wonder they use X.
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But I don't know when it will be operational.
Wake me (Score:1)
when they have satellites that only orbit over CA and the EU
Sovereign? (Score:1)
"What we can provide for Canada is what we call a sovereign capacity
Whenever you hear the statement "What we call X", you know X doesn't actually mean what X really means.
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on the contrary, it's a UK joint venture.
King Charlie the third is their sovereign too.
Read between the lines (Score:2)
Is Canada worried about attack from the US and being annexed into the 51st state? And the US cutting satellite access when it begins the annex? Crazy! Canada is a NATO member and anyone attacking a NATO member can invoke article 5 to get the whole alliance coming to their defense.
Re:Read between the lines (Score:5, Insightful)
I would say a military attack by the USA against Canada would violate all reasonable norms and expectations, as well as being a completely boneheaded move.
Unfortunately, the asshole running the USA has a long history of violating all reasonable norms and expectations, as well as making completely boneheaded moves.
So I makes sense for Canada to at least plan for a worst-case scenario. We actually do have our own LEO satellite company called Telesat [telesat.com] so I wonder why the Canadian government isn't working with Telesat to speed up the deployment of its Lightspeed satellite network?
Re:Read between the lines (Score:4, Informative)
Canada just wants to reduce dependency on their new asshole neighbors as much as possible. An entirely sane move.