When a single company controls the connection: Starlink’s Ukraine slowdown exposes the cost of relying on 1 provider

Canadians aren’t fighting that war, but many depend on one company, or a small handful of them, for connection to the internet, phone and payment networks that keep their finances running. When that provider changes its price, its terms or, most importantly its availability, customers often have nowhere else to turn.

Ukraine’s response holds a lesson for Canadians: the goal isn’t to avoid big providers; it’s to never have to rely on just one.

What happened to Ukraine’s Starlink access?

Ukrainian officials say SpaceX (TSX:SPCX) began interrupting military-grade terminals while moving at high speed, including terminals mounted on drones. Serhii Beskrestnov, defence tech advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said the speed limit made slower-flying attack drones easier targets for Russian defences. Reuters reported the system was working again by Thursday, citing a source in Ukraine’s Defence Ministry.

Why it happened at all is still unclear.

Musk said on X that Starshield, the military version of Starlink, is owned and controlled by the U.S. government. Any limits, he said, would come from the U.S. military and, ultimately, President Donald Trump. The restrictions came as Trump criticized Zelenskyy over Ukraine’s strikes on Russian oil refineries.

The scale of Starlink explains why a slowdown is such a big deal. The network has more than 11,000 satellites and roughly 13 million subscribers, according to CBC News. Renard Sexton, an associate political science professor at Emory University and managing director of the Empirical Studies of Conflict, told CBC that Ukraine could adapt to a short restriction. A prolonged one, he cautioned, would be a different story: “They don’t have any way to replace it.”

This isn’t the first time Ukraine’s access to Starlink has been in doubt. In 2022, Reuters reported that Musk ordered service cuts throughout parts of the country during a counteroffensive, a report SpaceX disputed.

While politicians and leaders jostle to control the narrative, one thing is clear: Reliance on a company with the ability to control and restrict access can be a dangerous gamble.

Why does one dominant provider put your money at risk?

Turns out Canadians are no strangers to what happens when one network fails.

During the July 2022 Rogers outage, more than 12 million customers lost internet and cellphone service for up to 15 hours. And it wasn’t just Rogers’ customers who were impacted. Because Interac ran on the Rogers network, many shoppers couldn’t pay by debit, no matter who their own provider was. Interac later added a second network provider so one network’s failure couldn’t derail the firm’s coverage and use.

Concentration of control also shows up on your monthly bill. The Competition Bureau, the federal agency that enforces Canada’s competition laws, found that Rogers (TSX:RCI) , Bell (TSX:BCE) and Telus (TSX:T) serve about 87% of wireless subscribers in Canada. Its research showed prices can be 35% to 40% lower in regions where smaller disruptor firms compete.

Are rural Canadians on Starlink more exposed?

In many rural, remote and northern communities across Canada, Starlink is the best available option, and in many cases, the only option to get access to the internet or mobile service coverage. That leaves those customers particularly exposed to decisions made by this one company.

Starlink’s Canadian pricing shows how far those decisions can impact your costs. In 2022, it raised its monthly fee to $140 and its hardware to $759. Four years later, in January 2026, Starlink cut residential plan costs to $70 a month. While Canadian Starlink customers welcome this kind of a cut, the truth is they had no say in either pricing update — and no reliable alternative to select.