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Satellite Glitch Leaves Northern Canada In the (Internet) Dark
zentigger writes "At approximately 06:36 EDT Thursday, October 6, 2011, the Anik F2 satellite experienced an attitude control issue and lost earth lock, affecting C, Ku and Ka services. The satellite went into safety mode and moved from pointing to the earth to pointing to the sun. This has put most of Northern Canada in the dark as all internet and phone services come in over F2."
This only effects remote northern communities where fiber is unfeasible. It's around 60% of the area and much less than 1% of the population.
Northern Canada is not really a first-world region. It's mostly empty, frozen land and remote communities of native people living pretty basic lifestyles. Not much in common with the cities in the South.
Dont they have undersea fiber connections to the country, and DSL and stuff?
Or even dialup?
Why would half the country use only Satellite as thier Internet connection?
99.999999% of Candians live within 100 miles of the U.S. Border, in towns and cities, with cable and dsl.
There are 6,784 people living north of about 52N. Even some of these people may have cable and satellite in their towns, but the towns rely on satellites for their uplinks.
Remember, Canada is a big place. 75% of all Canadians live within 90 miles of the US border. So keep this in mind while you read all of the comments saying what a calamity this is for Canadians. Northern Canada -- and I say this as a Canadian, though some may disagree (like we disagree about what it means to be in Eastern Canada or Western Canada) -- generally are those who live above 55-60 degrees N which is an exceptionally small percentage of the total population.
Should probably read....
Remote communities in Canada's far north without internet.
Any major populated area connected by land line will not be impacted... In fact I would argue that nothing larger than a "Town" is likely impacted impacted.
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
http://www.nwtel.ca/media/images/operating_map_full.jpg
Check your atlas. I'm pretty sure there are no roads above the 75th parallel because there is a dearth of land up there upon which to build roads. :-) I think you mean 55th parallel, which would be accurate.