New satellite firm challenges Telesat stranglehold

IQALUIT — A new Canadian firm has emerged to challenge Telesat Canada’s stranglehold over Internet-related data transmission in northern and under-served areas of Canada.

Bird Satellite Communications Inc., a new company created just last week, has applied to Industry Canada for the right to launch two new satellites into orbit that would dramatically cut the cost of satellite communications in remote regions of North America.

Peter Stursberg, Bird Communication’s president and CEO, is the former president and CEO of Cancom, the satellite firm that has been providing television feeds to cable TV providers across northern Canada since the 1980s.

Lower costs

He says his new company has the means to dramatically cut the cost of providing Internet access to people living in remote regions of Canada — at a time when the government of Canada is looking at ways to provide high-speed Internet access to all Canadians.

Stursberg says the satellites his company is proposing to launch would use “spot-beam” technology to make them at least five times as efficient as Telesat’s.

“What that allows you to do is dramatically increase the amount of capacity that you get off a particular satellite, and when you do that, of course, you can drop the costs, ” Stursberg says.

They’re also proposing to offer the service across Canada and the United States to people living wherever high-speed Internet is not available. Stursberg estimates that this customer base represents about 33 million households.

“What we will have is a big enough base so that you guys in the North won’t have to bear all the costs. If you had to bear all the costs it would crush you.”

“But this way, because you spread the costs across the whole of Canada and the United States, it means that what we would be charging you for service up there would be the same as what people would be getting charged in Wyoming or Nevada or Saskatchewan,” Stursberg said.

Tobin must decide

To do that, however, Stursberg must persuade Industry Minister Brian Tobin to allocate Canada’s next orbital satellite position to Bird Communications, and not to Telesat Canada.

Every time you make a long distance telephone call, use the Internet or watch cable TV in Nunavut, you’re helping Telesat Canada make money.

That’s because Telesat, a former Crown corporation that is now owned 100 per cent by Bell Canada Enterprises, enjoys a monopoly over satellite communications in most regions of northern Canada.

Until now, Telesat has been assigned all of Canada’s satellite positions.

But Stursberg says that if Tobin accepts Bird’s proposal over Telesat’s, the federal government will have the means to meet its ambitious plan to provide high-speed Internet access to all Canadian communities by the end of 2004.

Stursberg even says his company’s proposal would accomplish that goal by December, 2003, a year ahead of schedule.

Earlier this year, Tobin appointed a 35-person advisory group to help the government achieve its broadband goal. Called the National Broadband Task Force, they’re supposed to provide Tobin with a report this spring.

Breaking the monopoly

Stursberg says his company’s proposal also provides some badly-needed competition for Telesat.

“What we’re proposing to do is break Telesat Canada’s monopoly on satellites, and generally, people are not that keen on monopolies. So, I think it should be well-received,” Stursberg said.

As for how the service would reach individual consumers, Stursberg said his company would sell bandwidth at wholesale prices to Nunavut-based retailers, such as Internet service providers.

“We will be able to price the capacity at the wholesale level so that it’s at least at the level that people would be paying for DSL access or cable modem access in southern Canada,” Stursberg said.

Those prices would be dramatically lower than what Nunavut ISPs now pay for satellite transmission, costs that they are forced to pass on to their customers.

The ISP would likely provide their customers with pi a-sized satellite dishes similar to those used by companies like ExpressVu to deliver satellite television to customers in northern Canada

“I think the way to think about this is that it’s direct-to-home Internet rather than direct-to-home TV,” Stursberg said.

Tobin is likely to make his decision on the allocation of Canada’s next satellite position by July of this year.

Since it’s not a public tender, Tobin, with the advice of Industry Canada officials, will likely decide on the competing satellite proposals behind closed doors.