Due to their efforts and strive to provide residents in remote and regional areas with reliable speed broadband services, the NBN Co has finally completed its construction of its 9th satellite ground station at Waroona in Western Australia.
Upon completion, the National Broadband’s network of satellite ground stations will add 24 dishes across 10 sites.
NBN’s Big Step Forward
According to NBN Co, this project is a crucial piece of infrastructure in NBN Co’s Long Term Satellite service, especially with the upcoming projects set to launch in 2016 or sooner if possible.
So far, they have built ground stations in Broken Hill, Woulumia, and Bourke in New South Wales. They also have different stations in Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Carnarvon, and Waroona in Western Australia; Geeveston in Tasmania, and Roma in Queensland. Meanwhile, the final station in Ceduna, Australia is set to launch not later than 2015.
Each ground station also includes two, 13.5 metres dishes with Wolumia and Kalgoorlie using two extra dishes for backup, monitoring, and telemetry.
NBN Co also said that majority of these stations also include on-ground solar farms, built and specially designed to offset the power consumption of the facilities.
Reinforcements
In March 2013, NBN Co signed a $300 million contract with French company, Arianespace under the previous Labour government to launch over 700 tonne rockets, which will carry satellites into space in 2015.
At the time, Senator Stephen Conroy (former Federal communications minister) said the satellites would provide broadband services to residents in the bush faster than most people receive in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne on the copper network.
NBN program director, Matt Dawson said “The Long Term Satellite” service will help people in remote and regional Australia access e-health and distance education services”.