NBN goes west

Broken Hill, in the far west of New South Wales, has been selected as the location for an NBN satellite ground station that will play a crucial role in providing Australians in isolated areas with access to fast broadband.

The facility will be an essential transmission centre to help deliver services over the National Broadband Network (NBN) to remote communities such as Menindee, Purnamoota, Yanco Glen and Kanbara.

NBN Co plans to construct a single-storey building with two 13.5 m diameter satellite dishes on a site approximately nine kilometres east of the city on the Barrier Highway.

The centre is also expected to provide a boost to the local economy when construction begins next year. NBN contractor Cockram Construction will require an estimated 20-30 construction workers to build the facility, which is expected to be up and running by 2015.

Welcoming news of the investment in the region, Broken Hill City Council Mayor Wincen Cuy said: “The NBN satellite centre further cements Broken Hill’s reputation as the Capital of the Outback. We’re proud to play a central role in a nation-building project that will help people in rural and remote Australia become better connected with one another and the wider world.”

The NBN is an important national infrastructure project that plans to connect every home, farm and business in Australia to high-speed broadband via fibre-optic cable, fixed wireless and satellite within the next decade. The city of Broken Hill itself will be included in the fibre network.

The NBN’s Interim Satellite Service already delivers reliable, high-speed broadband to more than 17,000 premises across Australia, with wholesale download speeds of up to 6 Mbps offered to internet service providers.

The satellite ground station will be one of 10 such facilities nationwide that will support the NBN Co’s Long Term Satellite Service, which is expected to begin operating in 2015. Two NBN communications satellites are currently under construction and are designed to deliver wholesale speeds of up to 12 Mbps to internet service providers.

Matt Dawson, NBN Co’s Program Director, Satellites, said: “Broken Hill is ideally situated to play a central role in delivering better broadband to the outback. It has the ideal climate and is close to reliable power and other infrastructure including the NBN’s core fibre transit network - the main fibre transmission lines linking towns and our exchanges.”