SpaceX serving only family living full time on island in Canada with Starlink internet

We regularly witness and document Starlink launches from Florida and California at Space Explored, so it’s nice to see the real-world impact SpaceX’s internet satellite service is having for customers. SaltWire.com shares the story of Mike and Georgina Parsons, who are the only full-time residents of Little Bay Islands in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.

While Mike is retired from the tech industry, Georgina works remotely as a chartered accountant, where things like two-way video, conferencing and screen sharing are expected, Mike said on a Zoom call.

“This is a real game-changer for her in terms of being able to do all those things that she couldn’t do before without a great deal of difficulty,” he said.

Mr. Parsons described the experience of switching from competing service Xplornet to SpaceX’s Starlink internet service:

“If I had to download large files or updates to the operating system … those were very hard to do or next to impossible to do before,” he said. “And now it’s almost instantaneous. It’s just unbelievable, the difference in the speed. It’s been great.”

Josh Tabish, public affairs manager for the Canadian Internet Registry Authority, says the average internet speed in rural Canada is around 5 Mbps compared to a median speed of 10x that by Starlink.

“Our data suggests that the service is quite fast,” he said. “We have about 15,000 Starlink tests from across the country. And the tests show that Starlink has a median download speed of 52.16 megabits per second.”

The Canadian government plans to connect everyone across Canada by 2030, but Starlink is providing a workable solution today for customers in rural areas – as the Parsons family shows.

Enjoy reading Space Explored?

Help others find us by following on Apple News and Google News. Be sure to check us out on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, join our Discord!