  Overcoming the digital divide in rural and remote areas has always been a big
challenge for Canada with its huge geographical area. In 2016, the Canadian
Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission announced broadband Internet
as a basic service available for all Canadians. However, approximately one
million Canadians still do not have access to broadband services as of 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made the situation more challenging, as social,
economic, and educational activities have increasingly been transferred online.
The condition is more unfavorable for Indigenous communities. A key challenge
in deploying rural and remote broadband Internet is to plan and implement
high-capacity backbones, which are now available only in denser urban areas.
For any Internet provider, it is almost impossible to make a viable business
proposal in these areas. For example, the vast land of the Northwest
Territories, Yukon, and Nunavuts diverse geographical features present
obstacles for broadband infrastructure. In this paper, we investigate the
digital divide in Canada with a focus on rural and remote areas. In so doing,
we highlight two potential solutions using low Earth orbit (LEO) constellations
to deliver broadband Internet in rural and remote areas to address the access
inequality and the digital divide. The first solution involves integrating LEO
constellations as a backbone for the existing 4G/5G telecommunications network.
This solution uses satellites in a LEO constellation to provide a backhaul
network connecting the 4G/5G access network to its core network. The 3rd
Generation Partnership Project already specifies how to integrate LEO satellite
networks into the 4G/5G network, and the Canadian satellite operator Telesat
has already showcased this solution with one terrestrial operator, TIM Brasil,
in their 4G network.
