NBN Co chief executive officer, Mike Quigley has revealed plans to construct and launch 2 x $500 million dollar satellites into orbit to deliver National Broadband Network services of at least 12 Megabits to Australian Households.
In what could take up to four years to bring into fruition, Mr Quigley stated that 1 satellite could easily service up to 200,000 premises. This would transmitt way more than enough bandwidth to service those outside the NBN’s fibre network, however a further satellite was required for redundancy purposes.
He explained by saying… “You could potentially do it with one, but the trouble is if we have some 200,000 premises on a satellite, they take roughly four years to design, build and launch into orbit, and so if one of them gets hit by a piece of space junk, I don’t want to wake up one morning and find that 200,000 people without a service and it will take four years to restore it.”
It’s believed that the proposed NBN Satellite Network could also service those who reside in fringe areas around major metropolitan regions, where access or difficult terrain could prevent fibre rollouts, as well as those in remote areas.
A satellite componet for the NBN appears to be a very sound idea and one that is very timely for those in remote areas I must say. A key factor, that wasn’t mentioned to my knowledge, was the ability (if any) of using the NBN Satellites as back up in the event of a natural disaster – a contingency already in place for other countries such as Japan.
Interesting.
Although the entire NBN deal seems somewhat hasty, they still appear to have thought through many scenarios. Satellite Broadband would be an ideal solution provided the latest cutting edge fast and robust technology was available…. Hate to think how much it would cost to send someone up into space to update it otherwise.
Good point about the contingency plan in case of a natural disaster too. I wonder if the NBN CO, or the Government for that matter, have discussed that idea in depth… or even at all?