The news follows the memorandum of understanding signed in July 2019, this CAD $600 million agreement enables service providers to acquire Telesat LEO capacity at lower rates to deliver broadband connectivity to rural, Northern and Indigenous communities across Canada.
At present, just 41% of rural households and only approximately one quarter of Indigenous communities in Canada having access to fast, reliable broadband service.
“Telesat LEO will transform connectivity in Canada, and this agreement will bring affordable enterprise grade, high-speed connectivity to underserved Canadians no matter where they live and work,” said Dan Goldberg (pictured), president and CEO of Telesat.
“We applaud the Government of Canada and Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for leveraging revolutionary technologies like Telesat LEO to drive widespread social and economic benefits. We look forward to working with Canadian service providers to provide this capacity to qualified communities across the country to get all Canadians connected as soon as possible.”
In addition, Telesat will be eligible to receive amounts under the agreement over a ten-year period once the Telesat LEO constellation goes live.
Under the terms of the agreement, a dedicated pool of Telesat LEO rural connectivity capacity will be available to service providers on a first come, first served basis to provide connectivity for eligible communities.
With Telesat LEO’s high performance network capacity, service providers will offer broadband services to their end users of at least 50/10 Mbps speeds with unlimited data, and mobility service providers will offer LTE services.
