NBN Co completes penultimate satellite station

A satellite ground station in Wolumla, NSW

NBN Co has completed construction of its ninth satellite ground station at Waroona in Western Australia as it builds out infrastructure to provide residents in remote and regional areas with high speed broadband services.

When completed, NBN’s network of satellite ground stations will include 24 dishes across 10 sites.

They will be critical pieces of infrastructure in NBN Co’s Long Term Satellite service, due to launch in 2016, or sooner if possible, NBN Co said.

NBN Co has so far built ground stations in Bourke, Broken Hill, and Wolumla in New South Wales; Carnarvon, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, and Waroona in Western Australia; Roma in Queensland, and Geeveston in Tasmania. A final station in Ceduna, South Australia is due for completion in Q1 2015.

Each ground station includes two, 13.5 metres dishes with Kalgoorlie and Wolumla using two extra dishes each for back-up, telemetry and tracking.

The majority of stations include on-ground solar farms designed to offset the power consumption of the facilities, NBN CO said.

NBN Co signed a $300 million contract with French company Arianespace in March last year under the previous Labor government to launch two 777 tonne rockets that will carry satellites into space in 2015.

At the time, former Federal communications minister Senator Stephen Conroy said the satellites would offer broadband services to people in the bush faster than most people receive in Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney on the copper network.

The Long Term Satellite service will help people in remote and regional Australia access e-health and distance education services,” said NBN program director, satellite, Matt Dawson.

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