<https://www.itnews.com.au/news/the-4013-urban-premises-to-receive-nbn-satellite-456437>
Exclusive: City areas shunted onto Sky Muster.
More than 4000 premises in “urban” electorates across Australia are
being offered Sky Muster satellite services to connect to the national
broadband network.
The numbers come from a fresh dump of NBN rollout data by federal
electorate that was released this week under freedom of information.
While most of the data is old – pre-dating the rollout information
available in iTnews’ reconstructed three-year NBN plan - the new
dataset contains one striking feature: a rare, granular breakdown of
NBN Co’s satellite numbers.
NBN Co has come under fire in recent months for refusing to disclose
how many ADSL users will be transitioned to satellite-only broadband
under the NBN.
iTnews earlier this month published an investigation revealing 62
towns promised fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) that had been switched to the
fixed wireless footprint instead.
The number of urban users being put into the Sky Muster footprint has
until now been difficult to calculate.
However, the electorate numbers show that 4013 premises in electorates
the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) classes as “urban” are
“eligible for [the] Sky Muster service”.
While 4013 is a small number – representing only 1 percent of the
400,000 premises to be covered by Sky Muster – the use of satellite in
city areas challenges the way the service has been positioned.
“Sky Muster is designed to serve more than 400,000 premises in some of
the most remote and isolated parts of Australia and islands such as
Norfolk, Christmas, Cocos and Lord Howe,” NBN Co said in late 2015.
“Many of these Australians have no broadband options other than
satellite.”
According to the electorate data, Perth urban electorates have the
most premises eligible for Sky Muster at 1416.
They are followed by Melbourne urban electorates where 746 premises
are eligible, and Sydney "urban" electorates where 548 premises are to
be offered only satellite broadband.
However, the Sydney "urban" numbers include Lord Howe Island which is
part of the electorate of 'Sydney'.
As with other premises being shunted out of the fixed line footprint,
cost is likely to be one of the main factors.
Network design could also play a role; FTTN, for example, typically
works over a shorter copper cable length than ADSL, which means it is
feasible - though unconfirmed - that homes in metro areas that are too
far from a node could be orphaned and left with satellite.
An NBN Co spokesperson said the company took into account "a range of
different factors into account when designing the NBN network."
"The cost and time of providing connections to individual premises has
to be taken into account," the spokesperson said.
"Unfortunately there will be a small number of properties in urban
areas where providing a fixed or fixed wireless connection will
require significant expenditure and take a long time to provide a
connection.
"On these occasions we will provide these premises with an NBN
satellite service."
One thing to note is that the proportion of urban premises set to
receive satellite is largely unchanged between the interim and
long-term satellite services.
The interim satellite service (ISS) had 376 active connections from
premises in urban electorates as at the 2013 federal election –
slightly under 1 percent of its user base.
What the electorate data does not reveal is how many of those eligible
for Sky Muster services in urban areas have actually taken them up,
given the availability of faster, more reliable alternatives such as 4G.
There's a table at the bottom of the article, giving a breakdown by
electorate.
--
David Boxall | For when the One Great Scorer comes
| To mark against your name,
http://david.boxall.id.au | He writes-not that you won or lost-
| But how you played the game.
--Grantland Rice
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