Dissatisfied with local internet options, rural N.B. residents turn to satellite service

For years Kevin Tory longed to purchase a property in a remote part of New Brunswick where he could spend weeks at a time living away from his primary residence in Sackville.

What stopped him? The question of whether he'd be able to get fast, reliable internet that would allow him to continue conducting daily Zoom calls and product demos as the owner of a 30-person software development company.

"I looked at all the available options that ... I had in various parts of the province here when you're outside of the range of … a wire coming to your house, and really nothing would give me the total amount of bandwidth and give me the ping rate that I needed."

That all changed in March. Tory applied for and was offered a subscription for Starlink, the satellite internet service offered by U.S. billionaire Elon Musk's company, SpaceX.

After trying it at his Sackville home for a few months, Tory said the results allowed him to feel comfortable about purchasing a cabin in Canaan Forks, located halfway between Moncton and Fredericton.

"Suddenly I'm … in the middle of nowhere on a dirt road ... five kilometres from the nearest streetlight and I have internet, which is good enough for everything that I need to do and is indistinguishable.

"I gave a demo to a customer in Florida … and I'm sharing my screen and I can do that from a cabin … on the Canaan River. That's pretty darn good that I can do that from there."