The chief executive of Australian government-owned NBN Company has stated that the company would spend up to A$1bn (US$872m) on two new Ka-band satellites to provide broadband internet services to rural areas of Australia.
Speaking at the Committee for…
The chief executive of Australian government-owned NBN Company has stated that the company would spend up to A$1bn (US$872m) on two new Ka-band satellites to provide broadband internet services to rural areas of Australia.
Speaking at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia’s (CEDA) 2010 ICT Review conference, Mike Quigley said that the satellites were necessary to cover those areas where it was too difficult or expensive to lay fibre or wireless networks. He said that the satellites, which would deliver approximately 2% of the total capacity of the planned National Broadband Network, would cost around A$500m each to build, launch and insure.
Quigley justified the need to acquire two new satellites by arguing that there was a lack of available satellite capacity in the country. “There is simply nowhere near enough the capacity in today’s satellite services over Australia to provide the sorts of services we are talking about, that is close to the wireless service of 12 megabits per second at peak and be able to do a lot of bandwidth,” he said.
What this means for Australian satellite operator NewSat, which still hopes that its planned Jabiru-1 Ku-band satellite will play some part in the government’s national broadband plans, is unclear. (see below)
As part of his speech, Quigley also spoke of the wider budget of NBN Co arguing that while the government has outlined a budget of approximately A$43bn over its planned eight year roll out, the final figure could be potentially much higher. He said that he had no idea what the cost would ultimately be and that it could potentially be a bottomless pit.
Quigley said: “When it comes to cost you always have to ask at what point do you stop? It’s a very long-term project, money will be out into this network for years and years and years, as it is upgraded.”
Last month, NBN Co signed a non-binding Financial Heads of Agreement with telecoms incumbent Telstra worth up to A$11bn. The agreement will see Telstra decommission its existing copper network and transfer its customers across to a new fibre-optic network.
One potential threat to NBN Co is a change in government with the leader of the opposition, Tony Abbott, threatening to scrap the project if he gets into power.
