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In Canada's North, a Single Satellite Outage Means Losing Basic Services (vice.com)
Jordan Pearson, writing for Motherboard: Around 5 PM Eastern time on Sunday, a satellite providing internet services to most of North America went offline due to a technical glitch, the CBC reported. If you live the vast majority of communities in southern Canada or the US, you probably didn't notice. But in some parts of Canada's sparsely populated North, losing just one satellite means giving up basic services like access to ATMs or a flight out of town. In other words, life went offline before the satellite's function was restored on Monday afternoon. The satellite in question was Ottawa-based Telesat's Anik F2, which first went online in 2004 and has a coverage area spanning Canada's northernmost tip down to the southern US. Most places in North America don't totally depend on Anik F2 for an internet connection, and have landlines as well as other satellites -- even some of Telesat's -- to fall back on if one piece of equipment goes offline. But Canada's northern communities are desperately lacking in internet infrastructure, a situation that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to remedy. Some places depend on Anik F2's connection for everything. There is no backup.
"..leaving dozens of Canadians without Internet."
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Same rationale in the 40s and 50s maybe, why supply phone service to rural areas where they are too stupid to live in the cities?
You make it sound like there's a handful of kooks living in a shed. That's bull. These are long-established and recognized communities, mining operations, fishing outposts, and the like. Isolated isn't remotely the same as being out in the middle of the wilderness.
The issue is that there's a single point of failure for what is a huge amount of the country's landmass. One that's only going to grow in financial and military importance as time goes on. So why should Canada tolerate that? Satellite is the only viable option up north for good reason, but solutions still have to be found.
Had to click to the article, and then again to the source to finally find out what area they were talking about, "northern Quebec and Nunavut". You'd think that's interesting information, and a lot better than just "North".
To put in context. I live in the NWT. It is the size of Texas and California combined. The population is 45k, half of which live in one town.