Rural, regional and remote Australia is finally starting to receive the internet and mobile coverage it deserves, and the roll out of fixed wireless and Sky Muster satellite services to rural and remote Australia will be largely complete within two years. By then, every distance education student will have access to extra 50 gigabytes a month on the Sky Muster satellite.
As a rural mother of two studying boys, I'm proud of this.
Every Australian will have the chance to connect to the nbn by 2020.
The roll out of fixed wireless broadband is significantly more than half complete - some 420,000 rural homes and businesses are already able to connect with that network expected to be largely completed in 2018.
The Sky Muster satellite went up in April and is now installing the equipment to connect 10,000 customers a month, so many remote Australians who would never have otherwise received broadband are already reaping the benefits.
We expect a total of 240,000 customers on Sky Muster and its backup satellite in 18 months time. By 2020 the nbn will cover almost three million rural, regional and remote premises. Most people I talk to understand that nbn Co physically can't deliver 240,000 Sky Muster connections and well over half a million fixed wireless connections instantly.
The product is also very good - up to 25 megabits a second by satellite and up to 50 via fixed wireless. Retailers offer plans from $35 a month (the distance education student allowance of 50 gigabytes is additional to this).
I understand many people who are still on the interim satellite service provided by previous governments are frustrated and also that much discussion focuses on this rather than those who are receiving great service.
Fast broadband can help our rural communities in many ways - it can allow more businesses to be based in our rural communities, teleconferencing with businesses and colleagues in the city, or allow farmers to watch YouTube clips instructing them on how to fix their machinery, for example.
I aim to help build country communities our children and grandchildren either stay in or come back to, and good internet will encourage our kids to stay in the country.
Australia's hilly terrain means we'll never cover every inch of the nation with mobile phone coverage, but the Coalition's $220 million Mobile Black Spots Program is seriously improving it (including 3G and 4G).
The first three rounds of our program is expected to fix 4800 of them, and round 1 alone will build 499 towers - I reckon that's a damn good effort. Small cells, which produce 4G data for a small area around a mobile phone tower, are being installed in 135 rural locations around the nation.
The Coalition has now been in government three years and in that time we've made very good progress. There's more to do, but the ability of country Australians to access data is hugely improved.
