Quigley sets out timetable for NBN Co's first six months

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 16 September 2009 13:20

IT Industry - Strategy

He added that the Australian Broadband Guarantee programme was already operating (using the IPStar broadband satellite and others) to provide broadband services in remote areas. "It seems to be a very successful programme. We're looking at that in detail. We're looking at the traffic usage by those customers. We're looking at the analysis. I'm talking to a number of satellite companies at the moment to see what is available, what options are open and bit by bit we're trying to gather together the information to make rational technological and business choices there."

He also flagged another problem that cannot be solved by any of the current satellites used to deliver the broadband guarantee service, or by launching another geostationary satellite, latency. "These satellites are up there at 36,000 kilometres which means it takes light some time to get up there and back."

Should NBN Co determine the need for a dedicated satellite to deliver broadband services to remote Australia it could look to a project that is well underway to shorten those long lead times: that of satellite services provider NewSat.

NewSat announced back in November 2007 plans for its own satellite that it hoped to launch this year. It expected to fund $100m of the estimate cost itself, $100m form potential partners and get Government funding already set aside for telecommunications to provide the rest. The proposed Ka band satellite would be build by Space Systems Loral , launched by Arianespace and would provide coverage of Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Timor.

NewSat repeated its offer in July 2008 in a submission to the Expert Group working on the NBN Mark 1 (FTTN version). In that submission NewSat suggested that the use of satellite technology to provide positioning for precision farming could be a key application, in addition to communications.

The project, now going by the name Jabiru, is still very much alive: at its annual results announcement last month, NewSat said it had appointed Lazard as strategic adviser on, amongst other things its plans to launch its own satellite.