NBN has launched its wholesale broadband satellite service Sky Muster.
The service uses NBN’s satellite and 10 ground stations to provide broadband to regional and remote parts of Australia, where a physical connection would otherwise be too costly.
NBN announced that end users received download speeds up to 25Mbps and upload speeds up to 5Mbps during testing.
Around 37,000 users are already using interim satellite services in Australia, with NBN expecting that it hit 85,000 full-time users by June 2017. NBN said it would migrate interim users into the new satellite services by May 2017.
NBN chief customer officer John Simon said that online connections in regional areas had become increasingly critical for businesses and access to telehealth services.
“Australia is a uniquely vast country, making online connections increasingly critical,” said Simon. “We have teamed up with our delivery partners and now have a field force of over 600 trained technicians ready to connect homes around the country.
“It will take some time to get all eligible premises connected due to the sheer size of our 7.69 million square-km country, so we ask for patience as our teams travel around to install the service.”
NBN lists seven services providers that sell Sky Muster connections, including Activ8me, Ant Communications, Clear Networks, Harbour ISP, IPSTAR, reachnet and Sky Mesh.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released its first quarterly report today on the NBN wholesale market. The report found that NBN was supplying 941,235 wholesale access services as of 31 March 2016.
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