nbn have announced a substantial improvement to the Sky Muster satellite service. The 240,000 homes and businesses in regional and rural Australia serviced by Sky Muster will have the ability to increase their maximum monthly data limit and will receive (up to) 50% faster download rates. The new nbn Sky Muster plans are expected to be available through retailers in October 2017.
The changes will see an increase maximum usage during a peak period from up to 75GB/month to up to 150GB/month, and double the maximum total data usage from 150GB/month to 300GB/month. The increased average peak data allowance that RSPs can offer to end users increases by 50%, from 30GB to 45GB month.
The good news is, the services changes announced by nbn are expected to be passed on to consumers and businesses by Retail Service Providers (RSPs) at a similar cost to what they are paying today.
Since the launch of the service in April 2016, nbn technicians have been working to improve the satellite network’s overall performance as well as extensively testing the total capacity it can provide. This period allowed the company to monitor and research the delivery of the service in real-world conditions and identify efficiencies which have resulted in an increase to total capacity available on the service.
nbn’s Chief Executive Officer, Bill Morrow said,
“We are committed to helping to bridge the digital divide by delivering a world-class broadband service to regional and rural Australians.
Late last year we made the decision to re-purpose our second satellite, previously slated as a dormant backup service to actively share the load in delivering more data to customers on the Sky Muster service. After spending the last year reviewing and testing the capabilities of the service, we are now comfortable that we have the capacity to offer increased data packages to retailers.
If you’re on the Satellite service from nbn and aren’t happy, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Also expected in the future are further offerings for business and education, expected in the next 12-18 months.
