NBN and its new satellites

[pmrid (Peter)]

Has anyone heard anything new about these 2 Ka-band satellites nbn Co is said to be launching "later in 2015 "?

As a non-metropolitan/rural resident we have had little choice about our internet access options. It's been satellite or nothing really. And 20GB of satellite costs about $60 a month, is slooooow as heck, doesn't work properly with VOIP and so on and so on. So I'm really interested in alternatives to the IPnet satellites if there is one.

Peter

[clive milne]

Peter,
I'm not sure there is much I can add.
I do know that there are limited numbers of connections available. We looked at it for our dark sky property and did not fit the criteria on account of there being Telstra 3G in the district even though the property is in somewhat of a blind spot of all the local towers (at ground level at least) I think the expectation is that we would have to put up a mast or apply for an exemption.
From memory, the speeds and data allowance made for a compelling argument for satellite NBN (if you can get it)

The limited number of connections that are on offer would prompt me to get in the queue sooner rather than later.

regards,
c

[gary]

Originally Posted by pmrid

Has anyone heard anything new about these 2 Ka-band satellites nbn Co is said to be launching "later in 2015 "?

As a non-metropolitan/rural resident we have had little choice about our internet access options. It's been satellite or nothing really. And 20GB of satellite costs about $60 a month, is slooooow as heck, doesn't work properly with VOIP and so on and so on. So I'm really interested in alternatives to the IPnet satellites if there is one.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Early this year it was announced that the ground stations in various
parts of the country had been completed.

Launching of the first satellite had been planned for June but Arianespace
could not find a second payload to share the rocket, so the launch date
had been postposed by them to October/November.

Service was expected to begin in 2016 and provide 25Mbps down and 5Mbps
up.

Clive - you will be referring to the current interim service which was
using the limited available capacity of the IPStar satellites that NBN was
renting bandwidth from before the long term broadband purpose-built Ka
band satellites are launched.

[clive milne]

Thanks for the clarification Gary,
would I be correct in assuming that once the Ka satellites become operational, the current restrictions to access will be lifted?

[astroron (Ron)]

Hi Gary,I was wondering when the said satellites were coming on line.
I am in the same situation as Peter.
I look forward to the day when they come on line.
Thanks for the information.
Cheers

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Clive, once the NBN sats are up and commissioned, by my understanding it then goes to the commercial decision of NBN. If you are not feasible for whatever fixed line solution they apply in your area, you would get fixed wireless (Which I am on) if you can't get fixed wireless then you would be connected via satellite instead.

I don't know if the sat service will grow past 25/5 but the fixed wireless is currently in a trial of 50/20 speeds, with the vague nature of wireless meaning that anything above 25/5 is "Best effort" We are currently suffering some configuration issues that mean that our download has not increased at all but the upload has gone up to between 10 and 14mbps. Very handy when someone in the house does magazine work and semi regularly uploads very large files.

[gary]

Originally Posted by clive milne

Thanks for the clarification Gary,
would I be correct in assuming that once the Ka satellites become operational, the current restrictions to access will be lifted?

Hi Clive,

I gather that is the intent. The new Ka band satellites are purpose built
for broadband delivery and have much higher capacity and speeds than
the interim satellites they have been leasing bandwidth from.

The demand for the interim service was larger than available bandwidth
so when the new Ka band satellites come online hopefully rural areas
will enjoy much faster speeds.

The plan is that leasing of the interim service will then end but I
understand that they have extended it to 2017 in case of delays.

One of the technicalities was negotiating with the Russians over the
140 degrees East Ka band orbital slot. The Russians had applied to the
ITU for the slot and their application was to service all parts of the Earth
viewable from that parking spot. They have since articulated that they
are only interested in servicing the Russian Federation but negotiations
with them in Geneva have apparently been trying to get them to formally
agree that the Ka band footprint would not extend into the southern
hemisphere over Australia where it might otherwise interfere.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Originally Posted by gary

One of the technicalities was negotiating with the Russians over the
140 degrees East Ka band orbital slot. The Russians had applied to the
ITU for the slot and their application was to service all parts of the Earth
viewable from that parking spot. They have since articulated that they
are only interested in servicing the Russian Federation but negotiations
with them in Geneva have apparently been trying to get them to formally
agree that the Ka band footprint would not extend into the southern
hemisphere over Australia where it might otherwise interfere.

Strewth. In my simplistic way of looking at things, I would have thought they would have finalized that negotiation BEFORE spending money of these satellites if, as you say, they may not be able to secure exclusive Australia-wide access to it from the ITU.

But then that's just an old bloke's simple view of the world.

Peter

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Apparently it is quite common around the world for satellites to be ordered before the orbital slot is approved.

I recall that one doing the rounds when the current government was in opposition. Used to indicate ineptness of the then government at the time, but not apparently much of a problem now.

[gary]

Originally Posted by pmrid

Strewth. In my simplistic way of looking at things, I would have thought they would have finalized that negotiation BEFORE spending money of these satellites if, as you say, they may not be able to secure exclusive Australia-wide access to it from the ITU.

But then that's just an old bloke's simple view of the world.

Peter

Hi Peter,

The negotiations are via the Australian Communications and Media
Authority (ACMA) who control radio spectrum bandwidth in Australia
and they in turn deal with the ITU.

At an Estimates hearing, the general manager of ACMA, Giles Tanner,
advised that -

Originally Posted by Giles Tanner, general manager ACMA

"It's not uncommon, however, that coordination agreements
have not been concluded in all cases by the time a satellite has to be launched.
There is a procedure for dealing with any residual, unresolved issues at
the time the satellite is brought into use."

"Hypothetically if it were not possible to complete a successful coordination,
NBN Co can bring its satellite into use -- it can launch it, it can start services --
but before it brings it into use it would give certain assurances to
us as the filing representatives, that in certain circumstances or scenarios if
the earlier filing.. did certain things that would be incompatible with what
they're doing, they would make changes to the operation of their satellite."

Tanner said that this was "a quite frequent procedure" in satellite launches.

"There are many, many coordinations that have to be done usually over a
seven-year period if you want to launch a satellite."

So it sounds as if you can build and launch a satellite faster than the
bureaucracy to negotiate with other players in getting a slot. At the end
of the day they haven't ruled out paying the Russian operator and the Russians
no doubt will simply make the commercial decision of whether they want
to service both the Russian Federation and Australia or whether they just
want some cash and point their antennas only to the northern hemisphere.

[clive milne]

They could just send Tony over their to 'shirt-front' the appropriate Russian official.

[pmrid (Peter)]

Originally Posted by clive milne

They could just send Tony over their to 'shirt-front' the appropriate Russian official.

And with a bit of luck, he won't come back.

Had a mate in Honk Kong once who went to Russia with a pile of US$ to try to buy a "friend "out of a nasty contract. Turned out the contract was with the mob. Neither he nor his "friend "were heard or seen again.

Not good folks to be doing business with.

Peter

[gary]

In an article that has appeared online this afternoon in the Sydney
Morning Herald, Ben Grubb reports that "Sky Muster", the first of two
NBN long-term broadband satellites, will launch on October 1 2015.

Originally Posted by Ben Grubb, Sydney Morning Herald

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull — who opposed the building of the satellites in Opposition by arguing that existing private satellite companies, such as the now collapsed NewSat, were capable of servicing Australians— revealed for the first time on Thursday that "Sky Muster", the first of two NBN first long-term broadband satellite, would launch on October 1.

Blasting off from French Guiana, an overseas region of France, the announcement will be welcome news for those on the existing interim satellite service, which has suffered from slow speeds due to congestion.

Weighing nearly 6400 kilograms, it is one of the world's largest communications satellites and is the first of two that NBN will launch into space. The second will launch later next year "to ensure there is sufficient capacity to meet the needs of users in regional and remote areas", Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull said in a statement.

The satellites will deliver peak download speeds of up to 25 megabits per second regardless of where people live, Turnbull said, meaning that Australians living in rural and regional areas will have access to a satellite service "much better than they currently experience".

Scheduled to launch from Guiana Space Centre in South America, Sky Muster is set to progressively deliver broadband to more than 200,000 homes and businesses in rural and remote Australia from next year.


...
Six-year-old Bailey Brooks, a student of School of the Air based 400 kilometres outside of Alice Springs, won the opportunity to name the satellite earlier this year through a nationwide nbn drawing competition which invited children to illustrate how the new broadband network will make Australia a better country.

Bailey, along with her remote classmates, named the satellite Sky Muster to refer to the gathering of cattle and how the satellite will help "round-up" and connect Australians together.

Her illustration will also be displayed on the rocket launching the satellite into orbit.

"My drawing shows me on my balcony and the satellite and stars in the sky," she said. "I'm very excited to name the satellite and have my drawing put on the rocket and am counting down the days until Sky Muster is sent into space."

Story here: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...13-giy5ec.html

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by gary

In an article that has appeared online this afternoon in the Sydney
Morning Herald, Ben Grubb reports that "Sky Muster", the first of two
NBN first long-term broadband satellite, will launch on October 1 2015



Story here: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...13-giy5ec.html

Incidentally Gary, my wife shares an office with one of the guys in the NBN Satellite architect team ...she is not a techo though....

Mike

[gary]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

Incidentally Gary, my wife shares an office with one of the guys in the NBN Satellite architect team ...she is not a techo though....

Mike

Hi Mike,

Great stuff!

It seems fitting that the young girl and her class mates who won
the naming competition are students of the School of the Air.

Back in the 70's I remember picking up School of the Air broadcasts
when they used HF radio. They were fascinating to eavesdrop on for
a few minutes and listening to the kids communicating from remote
parts of the outback acted as a reminder what a vast country we live
in.

With the limitations of the radio transmission quality forcing both the
teacher and students to speak more slowly than normal plus having
to say "over" at the end of every transmission, the rate of
communication was quite slow.

When you consider the improvements in educational material that
can be delivered to these kids with the bandwidth these new satellites
will provide, it gives reason for all Australians to feel proud.

Best Regards

Gary

[The_bluester (Paul)]

Saw that write up yesterday just before seeing this thread come back alive. Great to finally see a prospective launch date, even better to see it this year, as little as a week ago people were talking about both going up next year.

Now I just wish they could get the rest of the damn think working properly, to my knowledge they have not really even gone beyond limited trials of the new FTTN product and I see all sorts of issues popping up. Like the fact that so far it does not appear that they can just kick off all other carriers from a node when they install one, so if people have a service with iinet (For instance) who happen to have a DSLAM in the exchange that node was connected to, it could be two years or so before all customers are in the "Get on the NBN infrastructure or loose service" basket.

The upshot of that is by what I have seen, the much vaunted savior of copper (Vectoring) will not be able to be switched on for up to a couple of years after a node is commissioned. That means that VDSL may well deliver slower speeds than those currently available to a lot of people for several years!

Pretty much says that it will not be until people are forced to change over that it will happen, who would want to drop from say 18mbps download rate to 12 for two years while waiting for the forced migration date to roll around to get "Foreign" services out of the copper bundle so vectoring can do it's thing?

[gregbradley]

That could be good for me if I want to use my dark site observatory for remote imaging. A good satellite internet is probably step 1.

Greg.

[The_bluester (Paul)]

If you are properly remote then that would I assume be what you would get. Depends though, you might in in fixed wireless.

If things stay at least slightly true to the original concept the prices should all be about the same, and if Fixed wireless was available it is better for latency obviously.

[gary]

Hannah Francis, Technology Reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald,
reports today on Sky Muster.

Originally Posted by Hannah Francis, Sydney Morning Herald

If everything goes to plan, the long-term satellite service will deliver download speeds of 25Mbps and upload speeds of 5Mbps for up to 400,000 eligible rural and remote premises, with a total capacity of 135Gbps compared to only 4Gbps on the current interim satellite service.

One-hundred-and-one "spot beams" will cover the nation's vast geography – including faraway places like Macquarie Island – to deliver "the quality at least that people are getting in the city", nbn space systems manager Julia Dickinson says.

...

Sky Muster has undergone rigorous testing to ensure it can withstand the most dangerous part of its journey: on the back of a rocket, breaking through the Earth's atmosphere. Dickinson says the type of rocket being used has seen 67 successful launches in a row, but concedes there's "always a small risk" of catastrophe, however unquantifiable.

...

Should Sky Muster make it safely into orbit, it will still take several months of end-to-end testing before customers can access its broadband services. Retailers such as Telstra and Optus will also have to test integration with their networks, with retail slated for mid-2016.

A second satellite will join Sky Muster in a few months after testing in the US.

Article here -
http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/governm...25-gj7t3j.html

[pmrid (Peter)]

This today.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-2...launch/6793720

Peter