NBN launches uncapped satellite plan
Australia’s state-owned broadband network company NBN is now offering uncapped data to 400,000 homes via a new satellite plan called NBN Sky Muster Plus Premium.
Being a satellite plan, it’s aimed at remote and regional areas that are otherwise not well served by terrestrial networks – which in Australia covers a fair bit of land. As well as the uncapped data, the benefits of the plan are presented as ‘burst download speeds’ of up to 100Mbps, and lower wholesale pricing.
The launch follows a trial run involving 10,700 participants, during which NBN boasts that the network remained robust despite a significant increase in data usage during peak times. The service will be available to order as of 1 June.
“With the rapid growth in data usage, people live their digital lives with more connected devices for remote work, online learning, social media, e-commerce and entertainment,” said Gavin Williams, nbn Chief Development Officer for Regional and Remote. “Homes and small businesses in remote areas require access to more data to help cater for their needs. We are excited to launch nbn Sky Muster Plus Premium as the next step in the natural evolution of the nbn satellite network, offering even more connectivity options for homes and businesses in regional and rural Australia.
“The nbn Sky Muster satellite service is a vital part of the nbn network and connects remote parts of our country. This new plan will help more people thrive in the digital age like never before. Not having to worry about a monthly data allowance offers more flexibility in how and when people use their internet, and more time to do the things that matter most.”
Australia remains one of the best use cases for the benefits of satellite connectivity, since there are many areas which you could describe as remote by any standards across the vast country. On top of this it’s a rich country so as long as there are enough people settled in a given area there is a viable and addressable market, as they say, as opposed to say the areas in the Siberian wilderness or Brazilian rainforest.
NBN clearly wants to get ahead of the curve with this trend to save losing customers to ‘intensifying’ competition, as alluded to in statements by Co chief executive Stephen Rue raround the recent news that it was cutting 500 jobs.
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This service used to be a piece of critical infrastructure for Australia. It should now be labelled legacy and customers should be looking to upgrade to one of the newer generation satellite services.
Sky Muster has a very high latency of 500+ ms (higher is worse)
Newer satellite technologies offer latency down to about 50 ms (lower is better)
No obvious reason to switch back from Starlink. Pricing is a critical issue but ‘burst’ speeds of 100mbps is a bit ho hum as Starlink regularly delivers 150mbps effortlessly. Pings are usually under 50msec which makes using Zoom and similar apps seamless. GEOs will never, by reason of distance from surface, match this. But it’s still good to see that NBN have finally recognised that their satellite service has been made almost superfluous by LEO services