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nbn® satellite access network

The business nbn Satellite Service leverages one of nbn’s leading-edge, high-throughput satellites and resilient ground infrastructure to bring new broadband capacity using the existing highly reliable network architecture.

High frequency

As a high frequency Ka-band service, the nbn satellite access network can provide higher wholesale bandwidth compared with lower frequency C-band and Ku-band satellite services.

High-throughput satellite

Spot beam architecture means high capacity and extensive coverage, especially in remote and regional areas of Australia.

High network availability

With redundancy built into the ground station network, and a fibre connection to both the east and west coast Points of Interconnection (POI), the business nbn Satellite Service is designed to meet the availability requirements of small businesses all the way up to enterprise customers.

The business nbn Satellite Service uses one of the nbn Sky Muster satellites which are two Ka-band satellites, first launched in 2015 - currently in geostationary orbit 36,000km above the earth.

The satellites are the first high-throughput, Ka-band satellites launched to focus exclusively on the Australian landmass.

Key features are:

The satellites are designed with a spot beam architecture. This means larger capacity, higher wholesale bandwidth and extensive coverage across Australia.

Our business nbn satellite service beams now cover 100% of the Australian mainland, Tasmania and major outer islands including the Macquarie, Christmas, Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands. This helps providers to deliver a range of innovative product solutions to eligible businesses right around the country‡.

nbn has leveraged its significant investment to build resilience into the business nbn™ Satellite Service and its terrestrial network. Key wholesale features include: 

  • Points of Interconnection (POI) in both the east (Eastern Creek NSW) and west (Wangara WA) coast allowing service providers to build redundancy into their ABS service and for nbn to provide similar for VISP and IoT services.
  • The spot beam architecture is made possible by the 10 satellite ground stations (which includes one for redundancy). 
  • Our business nbn™ Satellite Operations Centre located in Melbourne manages network performance and customer service incidents, it also includes sandpit and testing capability for service providers. 

Due to it being a high frequency, Ka-band satellite service the equipment is relatively modest in size and therefore easier to install than other geostationary satellite systems available in Australia.

nbn offers a number of different NTD options to suit each product category of the satellite service. Each NTD includes an outdoor unit being the transceiver and antenna and an indoor unit being the modem.

‡An end customer’s serviceability may be affected by a range of factors including whether there is a clear line-of-sight to the satellite, no interference, for example from other end customer, retail service provider or third party equipment, and having a suitable location to install equipment. Plans over the business nbn™ Satellite Service may not be offered by all providers.