Thread: NBN Skymuster Satellite. Your views.

I accept that, if it is a widespread blackout, but if it is only a local outage then chances are we may be ok & towers apparently have limited life battery back up & redundancy to transfer calls to alternative towers & after that we will all be in more strife than Ned Kelly.

Pte. Frazer.... "We'll all be doomed I tell you, Doomed".

This area is prone to falling branches & trees so land lines are not sacrosanct either. That's life.

Some info suggests up to 8 hours of batt. backup is available.


Telcos may be forced to equip towers with more power - Telco/ISP - iTnews

Now, where have I put my book on Aboriginal & North American Indian Smoke signals?

Originally Posted by 4bee

Thanks Mick but that doesn't matter now. Our initial concerns were to get shot of the landline @ $30 per month
& as we were going to eventually be forced into an NBN connection poss Satellite, we decided to bite the bullet & so we have made that decision. We have got 7 days for it to behave itself before the copper is yanked out.

Our service is underground in which we were down to the last cable pair, there being I think, 5 or 6 pairs in the box & over time (37 years) we had used up all those through deterioration. From what I can gather they would not use that conduit even though up the road it passed close to the Green Box as the run was too far. That would have been ideal in our case but noooooo.

Looking forward to Mon a.m. now. I believe we have made the right decision after looking at other's experiences on here which I thank all for.
Just hope they can locate a strong signal for us. As I have said on here ^^^; "What could possibly go wrong?"

I hope all goes as planned for you, 4bee.
From past dealings with telcos, I am more than suspicious about their methods and field staff competency. It took Telstra 12 months to work out why our internet would drop out every 20 minutes or so. I would have had visits from at least seven different service crew over that period, trying to sort it out.
Our present setup is overhead wire to our property pole, then about 150 metres of underground.

If you would be so good as to pen your thoughts after installation and a trial period, so as to alleviate/confirm my thoughts on this matter, I'd be grateful.

p.s. We have full signal on our mobile devices here.

I would be honoured to Saitch.

Typically when dealing with these people I find myself holding my breath &/or Hyper ventilating into a brown paper bag, heart rate climbs to buggery & on Monday I will probably **** my Daks before they arrive. No not really.


I have experienced some of the problems you speak of although it was our Landline that was fritzed in the latest fiasco. We had BB but no phone but after #1 called we didn't even have that after he got through wildly snipping wires hither & thither, jumped in his ute & buggered off never to be seen or heard from again.

3 weeks to even get someone to call, Asian sub-continent type bloke was here for 10 minutes, said he needed to contact another Dept ie. Engineering, to arrange for a Cherry Picker which would take another 3 weeks to arrive, a few more calls to find out wtf was happening.
A "Can Do Aussie Tech" arrived with a normal (for Telstra) Fibreglass ladder & a roll of phone cable who simply climbed through & disappeared amongst the surrounding foliage to the pole. Replaced the cable wished me good day & drove off. Of course there was a bit going on before then & after but you get my drift. They need blokes like him but they seem to be getting rid of the experienced people.

Apparently the bloke running his section had been moved there from some obscure non technical section & seemed to not have a clue what to do & assist his Techs.

A similar thing happened years ago when that particular bloke also wanted a cherry picker, when another old lag arrived & shinned the Stobie power pole to hook a wire over a bracket. Job done.

We have been on a Skymuster satellite NBN, 65/90 plan with Ipstar, since it first became avaialable. Costs $55 pm
The speed is is usually 18-20 MBpS(down) Slows down if I use a VPN. Use it for TV streaming and it works OK. Get occassional dropouts with heavy rain.
Far better than the Telstra mobile internet service we had previously, which even with an antenna was hopeless. We still get poor mobile phone reception and usually have to ask callers to call the landline. This seems to be worse on the weekend with more mobile usage from the tourists on the highway
We keep the the landline for emrgency calls out and the rental is about $32 pm. The landline occassionaly is down, coinciding with our road being graded. Its too far from the exchange for internet. When we built on the property over 20 years ago we were required to trench a cable bundle to the house which included optical fibre from the junction at the road. I suspect that wont get used in my lifetime

Not NBN, but as an example of how this call centre process can work.
Currently trying to port my mobile number from Woolworths Telstra to full-on Telstra, which works in some areas where Woolworths doesn't.
This process is supposed to take 24 hours. So far it's been four days and counting.
Three phone calls totalling more than three hours, talking with very polite and helpful call centre women with Filipino accents.
Two promised phone calls back did not happen.
Two promised starts to the porting process did not happen.
Received a message asking for a pin to be entered - done.
Received a message from Woolworths saying the porting process was underway.
Woolies sim in my dual-sim mobile now says 'no service'.
Telstea sim also says 'no service'.
Mobile currently useless.
Waiting hopefully.
Typing this on the free Wi-Fi at the Kuranda Skyway.

My thoughts are with you, Mike! This will, of course, call for a calming influence, such as a cheeky Shiraz or the like.

an example of how this call centre process can work.

Or not.



Mike, it sounds like you are plugged in to the AGL Call Centre. A bit of the olde Deja Vu. there.

Good luck with that Matey I hope you aren't doing anything before Xmas..

Originally Posted by goingbush

Elon Musks SpaceX Starlink will be rolled out well before the NBN is delivering as promised, High speed Global internet no matter where you are!

2 years ago the 'estimated' cost was $10 Billion. Love to see the figures now. 62 sats currently, with that expected to increase exponentially going forward, heading to a potential 42,000. Who is going to pay? How is Musk going to circumvent individual countries' telecommunication laws? China, for one, ain't going to dance to his tune. Probably not India either. Australia's laws are still based on 1980's thinking.

Don't get me wrong, if they can pull it off I will be happy. I've been canvassing ISPs for a decent, cost effective, MOBILE internet solution for a year now for when my ever receding dream of "going bush" for a year or more comes true. None of them offer anything, although one of the more honest ones told me I would be better off waiting until I drove back into 3G reception, rather than hoping for sat connection, as it would be faster.

Trouble is, I increasingly believe that Musk is heading for a monumental fall when investors see through him. I don't wish this ( the world needs visionaries, but Musk ain't Gates or Jobs ), but I believe it will happen.. But, hey, I'm sitting in a slightly run down house, typing on a Land Rover forum.. What do I know about high finance?