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Broken Hill to sprout more satellite dishes

NBN Co to land up the road from IPStar

IPStar’s satellite earth station in Broken Hill will be a little less lonely, with NBN Co confirming plans to drop some dishes near the outback city.

The site, which NBN Co says will be about nine kilometres east of the city on the Barrier Highway, is one of a bunch of earth stations being rolled out to support the satellite service that sweeps up locations too remote to get fibre or wireless services.

Broken Hill joins Bourke and Wolumla in NSW, Geeveston in Tasmania, Ceduna in South Australia (a very long-standing earth station site), Geraldton, Carnarvon (also famous for earth stations) and Kalgoorlie (also home to an IPStar gateway) in WA, and Roma in Queensland.

Industry newsletter Communications Day reports that local member Sussan Ley sees the ground station announcement as a slap in the face for the town, since NBN Co hasn’t yet announced when Broken Hill will be added to the fibre-to-the-premises rollout.

NBN Co’s response was that a local rollout will be announced once Broken Hill is added to its transit network.

Since the city has hosted an earth station since IPStar arrived on the scene, and these days has long-haul fibre from both Telstra and the Nextgen-operated RBBP network, the announcement should come as no surprise. ®

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