NBN’s broadband satellite service, Sky Muster, is now being sold to customers via ISPs, and boasts an average end user speed of 25/5Mbps as part of its goal to bring high speed internet to regional Australia. The satellite launched in October last year, and has since been trialled by over 200 households in regional and remote areas — who now have access to better connection speeds than many Australian city-dwellers.
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The new service makes use of the Sky Muster satellite and 10 NBN ground stations, to run the service intended to take over from the burdened interim satellite, which currently services over 37,000 users. NBN aims to migrate all users on the new satellite within a year of this week’s commercial launch, while also connecting new users — who may have never had access to broadband at all. The expectation is that around 85,000 users will be connected to the service by June 2017.
While the NBN struggles on with the FTTN v FTTP (or FTTdp) debate raging in the background, it’s easy to forget that even under the original NBN plan, some remote properties were never going to be connected to fibre. Now, remote and regional areas will be getting access to speeds that actually rival comparable satellite broadband services across the world.
“The NBN Sky Muster satellite service will make a truly transformational difference to rural and remote Australians as we offer some of the world’s fastest and largest consumer satellite broadband plans to remote and isolated areas of Australia,” said NBN Chief Customer Officer John Simon. “Broadband is essential for modern living. People in remote and isolated parts of the country will be better able to run their businesses, learn, stay in touch with friends and family and access new telehealth services online. Australia is a uniquely vast country, making online connections increasingly critical.”
Anyone in remote areas wanting to connect to Sky Muster can check availability for their area on the NBN website.