Our area has been downgraded on the NBN rollout plan. We were to receive fixed wireless, but now we have been relegated to the Sky Muster satellite service. This technology is inferior to fixed wireless or FTTN, but is better than the old satellite services. Speeds will be comparable to ADSL2 which many of us now enjoy, BUT the latency will be longer. Longer latency negatively affects services that require many interactions with a server, such as online gaming, Voice over IP, Facetime, Skype, etc..
Any form of voice communication over the Sky Muster service will suffer a noticeable delay, making a natural conversation difficult. ‘Ping time’ (the time it takes for data to make a round trip from you to the server and back to you) is typically 600mS on Sky Muster. On ADSL2 the ping time can be 35mS or even less. So in terms of latency, Sky Muster is a downgrade from ADSL2, although the bulk download and upload speeds should be higher than ADSL.
Check NBN availability at your address here.
Copper fixed lines will continue to be available at addresses served by the Sky Muster service (recognising the unsuitability of Sky Muster for voice communications), however products such as ADSL internet will eventually be decommissioned and you will be forced to use Sky Muster or the expensive 3G/4G mobile network for internet access.
The Sky Muster service is also affected by bad weather and may drop out on some days, so it is not reliable for emergency purposes.
Response from NBN Co to my enquiry regarding the degrading of our service:
- “Once an area as been made available for the Sky Muster Satellite scheme it will not be receiving another type of infrastructure. The nbn Sky Muster satellite service is dedicated to providing broadband connectivity to regional and remote Australia.”
As far as internet connectivity is concerned, you might as well be living in the middle of the Simpson Desert.
Interestingly, the major players (Telstra, Optus) are not yet offering Sky Muster internet plans. Sky Muster plans are currently only being offered by a motley list of minor ISP’s that you have never heard of: here they are.
In summary, our area will now receive a second-rate NBN service, and I suggest you all complain to our local member, Catherine King (contact form here).
