Background

It may come as a surprise to some, but most of the Yarramalong Valley and surrounding Valleys and Mountains have been put onto NBN's satellite service area, and since the satellite is now up there, we are now able to get connected to the NBN. This is where the fun stops. The NBN satellite offer may well be a good deal when you are the only home in the middle of an outback property the size of a small European country, but it certainly doesn't come close to what we already have and what a community so close to the Sydney, Newcastle and the Central Coast would expect in today's day and age.

Further, with the advent of the NBN offering connections to the satellite service, it is only a matter of time before the old Telstra exchanges will be shut down (NBN assures us that they won't be forced to shut down, but what shareholder owned company keeps their antiquated/obsolete equipment running when there are only a handful of customers left connected on it?). This means the end of ADSL in our area is coming!

This means, that collectively, we will be burdened with a slow, and very expensive communications option (SkyMuster NBN satellite) when we are very close to the civilised world of Newcastle, Sydney and the Central Coast.

Skymuster NBN services typically cost more than 2x the comparable ADSL or Fixed line NBN service, or up to 20x the cost when higher data requirements are factored in. Importantly downloads are capped at 60GB in peak periods, with NO ability to increase this at the present time.

What we have (ADSL) vs what we get under NBN Satellite (Sky Muster)

Table 1: Comparison between existing communications (ADSL) and NBN Satellite (Sky Muster)
Service type		Existing communications — typical Region 3 ADSL-enabled landline	What we will be stuck with if we don't act now — Sky Muster satellite
Speed obtained	Down	Poor	A little better
Speed obtained	Up	Poor	A little better
Speed available in next 10 years	Down	NA	No increase in sight(no future proofing)
Speed available in next 10 years	Up	NA	No increase in sight(no future proofing)
Latency (delay)	Connection to server	Good	Poor
Latency (delay)	Voice call to neighbour	Good	Very Poor
Reliability		Average	Poor
Affordability	@ speed tier	20/1	25/5
	Data cost	Average	Expensive
	Equipment power draw and associated power cost	Small	Huge
	Total cost	Average	Very Expensive

We do not believe that NBN Satellite is fit-for-purpose. We believe it is a significant step backwards that only increases the digital divide between our area and the surrounding Central Coast and Newcastle regions.

NBN Satellite in its current form (Sky Muster) meets none of our objectives. It is entirely not fit for purpose.

Sky Muster is NOT fast

High latency (delay)

If you make a call to your neighbours via VoIP and Sky Muster it has to travel:

Yarramalong → Sky Muster → Waroona (WA) → Sydney → Your ISP → Their ISP → Waroona → Sky Muster → Yarramalong

A round trip that can take a full 2 seconds! Introducing very noticeable delays.

Map of Australia showing a voice call's path from Yarramalong up to the Sky Muster satellite, down to Waroona in WA, across to Sydney, and back the same way to a neighbour in Yarramalong. — Sky Muster voice calls to your neighbours are terribly delayed (like old-fashioned international calls).

Sky Muster is NOT reliable

Cartoon: a farmer warns a neighbour of an approaching bushfire, but the satellite signal is obstructed by cloud and the message arrives garbled. Text: The Sky Muster signals are easily obstructed by clouds, rain, or other weather events. These weather events don't even need to be overhead — just somewhere in the communications path. Don't expect it to work when needed!

Sky Muster is NOT affordable and creates a digital divide