Monday’s announcement by nbn co of maximum satellite internet plans of 75Gb a month during peak periods has been described as a “light shower” rather than an end to the data drought being experienced by rural Australians.
The company says that through an “innovative process of network optimisation” it will be able to provide users of the new Longterm Satellite Service with wholesale plans with significantly more capacity than originally planned, thanks to a combination of covering premises with other nbn technologies and making more use of the second purpose-built broadband satellite due to be launched next year.
The extra capacity on the satellite network is expected to come from 40,000 premises moving to fixed line and fixed wireless technology.
Accompanying this announcement is nbn’s fair use policy for the new Sky Muster satellite, to help protect the quality of service for end users.
It will deliver wholesale speeds of up to 25/5Mbps and the optimisation plan now allows wholesale data allowances of up to 150GB per month, with plans underway for additional allowances for distance education students .
Survey data from the Better Internet for Rural Regional and Remote Australia (BIRRR) group shows bush broadband users are currently enduring speeds below 4/2Mbps, and often less than 2Mbps.
nbn intends to offer plans at a wholesale level to Retail Service Providers (RSPs) who are expected to launch retail plans at different price points to meet the various needs of their customers.
They will likely range from relatively low-cost offers for a basic connection, through to plans suitable for heavy data users, but nbn’s entry-level wholesale plans will enable RSPs to offer up to 75GB plans per month during peak periods.
As a guide, a 75GB plan could allow more than 7 hours per day of standard definition video streaming.
However, BIRRR administrator Kristy Sparrow believes the announcement will “by no means cover what data needs could be in a year, two year’s time, let alone another decade”.
“Our main concern at BIRRR is that data usage is doubling at a rapid rate and plans are not keeping up,” she said.
After years of dealing with almost non-existent speeds and very low data limits brought about by congestion and over-subscription of the current service, she is naturally wary of capacity sales pitches.
“As we take on feedback from people across Australia at the BIRRR Facebook group, members are very concerned that the new limits – while an improvement on current restrictive plans – will not address decent long-term service across Australia, as business becomes more and more internet- and cloud-based,” Ms Sparrow said.
“Everything is app- or internet-dependent these days – from mapping and management of properties, to tracing cattle movements and payment of bills and accounting needs. That’s not even taking into account innovative farming technology, social, health or education requirements”.
The maximum nbn co deal of 150Gb (total) will see users’ speed limited if they breach the plan limit over a 4 week rolling period, with severe penalties for service providers if these are exceeded.
“This will impact plan pricing and tiers as no provider will want plan limits breached,” Ms Sparrow said.
She added that her team was disappointed to see off-peak times announced as 1am – 7am.
“We hope that nbn co and providers continue to investigate innovative ways to use off peak data allowances. The majority of members feel that these times are virtually unusable and as such the data will not be able to be accessed.”
Federal Isolated Children’s Parents’ Association president, Wendy Hick welcomed the announcement that there would be a second port for distance education users, saying it was the result of collaboration between nbn, government and organisations such as ICPA working together to address the challenges presented.
“This should allow Australian children to keep up to speed with their education, no matter where they live,” she said.
While details are still to be confirmed, BIRRR was also pleased to see that the port is expected to provide distance education students with a 50Gb per student data allowance, to a maximum of 150Gb per port, as well as expected priority of access to Skymuster.
“All in all, whilst there has been some improvements, we are still going to have inequitable service and costs when compared to metropolitan areas,” Ms Sparrow said.
