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Tue 28 AUG

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NBN to revive Ceduna’s historic role in satellite communications

Posted on Tuesday 28 August 2012 by Matt Dawson

The old OTC satellite dish in Ceduna, now used as a radioastronomy telescope. NBN Co's satellite dishes will be much smaller than this. (Photo by Nachoman-AU, used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.)

Ceduna in the West Coast region of South Australia will house the next satellite ground station for NBN Co's Long Term Satellite Service.

The ground station will play a key part of connecting Australians in isolated areas to fast broadband.

The ground station will be located on Goode Road, approximately two kilometres north-east of Ceduna, and will act as an essential transmission centre to deliver the NBN to homes, farms and businesses in remote areas including Oodnadatta, Marree and Wilpena Pound.

It is one of ten such facilities to be built nationwide and the only one to be located in South Australia.

It will also revive the town's historic role in satellite communications after nearly 30 years. From 1969 to 1984, Ceduna provided the gateway between Australia and Europe for telephone and television communications. The former OTC earth station is now used by the University of Tasmania as a radio astronomy observatory.

Construction is expected to begin next year with the facility scheduled to be up and running by 2015. Once built, the ground station is planned to comprise a single storey building with two 13.5-metre diameter satellite dishes.

The town of Ceduna itself will be connected to the NBN via high-speed fibre, but the satellite ground station and Long Term Satellite Service is expected to be up and running in 2015.

In the meantime, NBN Co is delivering better broadband to more than 10,000 remote premises via the Interim Satellite Service. Eligibility criteria are available at www.nbnco.com.au/satellite or by calling 1800 OUR NBN (1800 687 626).

View more about:
Ceduna SA, Satellite, SA

By Matt Dawson, Program Manager, Satellite

Matt is responsible for delivering NBN Co's Interim and Long Term Satellite solutions — the latter being one of Australia's largest aerospace projects in the past decade. Matt is managing the process from scoping and design through to the satellites' launch into geostationary orbit, along with the necessary ground stations, support and control capabilities.

Legal stuff you need to know:

When we talk about speeds delivered over the National Broadband Network, we are referring to the wholesale speed to telephone and internet service providers. The speed you can achieve, and services you can use, on your individual connection will depend on many factors including the services you subscribe to, the software and communication protocols you use, quality of your equipment and connection to your home/business, the broadband plans offered by your telephone or internet provider and how it designs its network to cater for multiple users.

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