National Broadband Network has held its first demonstration of its new Sky Muster satellite.
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The 6,400-kilogram satellite was launched from French Guiana on October 1 and will service more than 200,000 homes and business in regional and remote areas across Australia from April in 2016.
The quality of service is expected to improve for about 340 homes in the Ballarat electorate which are currently faced with a lesser-performing Interim Satellite Service that is battling under the demand.
Sky Muster is expected to be a game-changer for Australians who live off the beaten track.
These people were never going to get fibre to the premises and even under the original NBN plan, seven per cent of remote dwellings were going to end up on satellite or fixed-wireless.
NBN held its first demonstration at the ENEX Test Lab in Brunswick, Victoria, this week.
Executive general manager of fixed wireless and satellite Gavin Williams and program director (of) satellite Matt Dawson demonstrated the satellite’s layer-3 speeds of 25Mbps download and 4Mbps upload abilities, which are just short of the maximum 25 and 5Mbps wholesale speeds.
During the demonstration, Sky Muster delivered content from popular consumer applications including You Tube, Facebook, Google Maps and Skype as well as others.
“We are delighted with the progress that we are making towards the planned launch of Sky Muster commercial services in the next couple of months,” Williams said.
“Rural and remote Australians will be able to access fast and reliable internet through their phone and internet provider in the bush, via the Sky Muster service.”
In the coming weeks NBN plans to launch end-user trials to around 200 premises in regional Victoria to conduct further testing of the service ahead of the full commercial launch.
Access to the satellite’s services will be staggered once it is operational.
Sky Muster is the first of two NBN satellites set to provide high-speed broadband across the country.
Both are primarily designed to assist with the roll out in rural areas.
The second second satellite is earmarked to be launched later this year.