Rogers wants you to look past The Great Outage and get excited that it has inked a new deal with SpaceX and Lynk Global to bring satellite wireless service to remote areas.
What happened: Rogers will tap into SpaceX and Lynk's network of satellites to offer cell services in remote areas (including those long stretches of highway where you get one bar if you're lucky).
- But don't plan on taking Zoom meetings from the woods just yet: There's no timeline for the SpaceX satellite hook-up, and a rollout of the Lynk network won't begin until 2024, pending sign-off from regulators.
Why it matters: Rogers isn't doing this just to scoop up customers in distant reaches of the country. It's also responding to pressure from the federal government in the wake of its daylong network outage that left over 12 million customers without service last year.
- That prompted regulators to demand that the big carriers guarantee some level of connectivity in the case of another outage, so that people can still do important things like call 911.
Zoom out: In yesterday’s earnings call, Rogers also announced it blew past analyst expectations thanks to population growth (which also means a surge in people signing up for wireless plans) and that it’s set to reap a windfall of savings from its acquisition of Shaw within two years. —SB