Coalition senators have complained their children aren’t able to use NBN’s satellite broadband for gaming, as the company admits 10,000 users have switched away from the service, including to Elon Musk’s Starlink.
Starlink has been available Australia-wide since early November last year, with some areas being able to access the low-orbit satellite-based service up to a year earlier.
The company has not said how many people have signed up in Australia but in regional parts of the country it is being seen as a decent alternative to the lacklustre speeds on NBN’s satellite service Sky Muster.
In Senate estimates on Tuesday night, NBN Co’s regional and remote development manager Gavin Williams said Starlink was having a “modest” impact on Sky Muster. He indicated the number of active users had declined from a peak of around 120,000 to 110,000, but did not say this was all a result of Starlink.
The Liberal senator Hollie Hughes said she was “surprised” it was just 10,000 who had abandoned the satellite service.
“I lived on a property 80km west of Moree, and we had three internet services so that we could open emails,” she said.
“My kids had never had access to a video game … because the Sky Muster absolutely provided no [band]width at all for anything other than very, very basic, basic access.”
Hughes said this was the experience for many in regional parts of Australia.
“People that have moved to Starlink have huge plans, like huge [band]width, speed. I am absolutely shocked you’ve only lost 10,000 people.”
Williams said the company had been making substantial improvements to the satellite service, including offering speeds of between 25Mbps and 50Mbps, and providing unlimited video streaming between midnight and 4pm.
He said gaming would always be something on which NBN can’t compete with Starlink, given the latency is partly due to the satellites being 36,000 kilometres from Earth, while Starlink’s low-orbit satellites are closer.
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“Your kid’s keen on gaming? By the time you’ve pressed the shoot-em-up button on Sky Muster that takes half a second to come up and down from space,” he said. “That means for those time-sensitive games, it’s not appropriate.”
Williams said he welcomed the advances in technology that now allow for Starlink but said Sky Muster offers its service at a lower price. The upfront cost of the Starlink technology is now $450 (marked down from $924) with a monthly fee of $139. There is no upfront fee for the satellite NBN, and while capped at 300GB per month the plans are less than half the price.
Stephen Rue, NBN Co’s chief executive, said part of the company’s strategy to improve the satellite service was to move more customers to the fixed wireless service. Planned 5G upgrades will allow the company to shift one-in-four satellite customers on to the technology. He said it will offer a higher speed than Starlink for those on wireless, and an improved service for those on satellite.
Rue said eventually the Sky Muster satellites will run out of fuel, meaning there will need to be a replacement, but currently it “absolutely continues to provide real benefits to many people in rural and regional Australia”.
Starlink has been contacted for comment.
