nbn co to launch wholesale Business Satellite Service

nbn co will use underutilised Sky Muster spectrum to provide a new wholesale Business Satellite Service aimed at remote and rural businesses.

“We understand the impact providing access to fast broadband for businesses may have on opening up new market opportunities, driving innovation and increasing productivity,” wrote nbn co’s Executive General Manager for Access Products, Gavin Williams, in an announcement on his nbn co blog page.

According to Williams, the Business Satellite Service will “support online applications such as video conferencing and cloud-based services” and is “designed to help businesses with online storage and backup network solutions, as well as provide critical communications support to disaster-recovery operations”.

“It will be crucial for the oil, mining and gas industries, as it has the capacity to connect in non-addressable remote locations where a number of these sectors run their remote offices,” Williams wrote.

“For farmers in rural Australia, this service is being developed to help enable them to better leverage new technologies such as remote monitoring, video conferencing and livestock tracking devices to save time and potentially reduce operational costs.”

The service will be split into two categories:

• Bandwidth services for enterprises with more complex networking requirements such as WAN connections to multiple sites.
• Broadband internet for firms needed more data, higher speeds and business-grade service levels.

“The nbn Business Satellite Service will initially only be made available to customers where there is spare capacity to deliver the service — these typically sit within remote locations away from the eastern seaboard where we have higher take-up of our existing Sky Muster product,” wrote Williams.

“It will be crucial for the oil, mining and gas industries, as it has the capacity to connect in non-addressable remote locations where a number of these sectors run their remote offices.”

Trials will begin in late 2018, with product launch expected in the first half of 2019.

Image courtesy nbn co.

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