Optus launches national 6Mbps satellite service

18 August 2010

Petroc Wilton CommsDay

Optus is set to steal a march on NBN Co’s proposed national satellite coverage with its own new highspeed VSAT service offering national coverage. The Optus Premium Satellite Service boasts headline speeds of 6Mbps downstream and 1Mbps up and is launching over the next couple of weeks, with an Australian

Broadband Guarantee-compliant product to follow shortly thereafter.

The service will use the Gilat SkyEdge II platform, with DVB-S2 technology

allowing Optus to drive more bits through its D1 Ku-band satellite;

it will also use a range of techniques including HTTP acceleration and prefetching

of web-pages to help ensure comparable service to ADSL. Optus is

aiming the new offering primarily at small businesses and corporate enterprise

in the first instance, particularly targeting mining and construction

companies looking to provide remote staff with internet access.

“It’s going to be the first satellite internet service to bring truly ADSLtype

services to Australians who cannot receive any other type of [access] technology,” Optus director of Wholesale and Satellite Marketing Nick Leake told CommsDay. While 6Mbps is the peak speed and actual user speeds will depend on contention, Leake explained that “we’ve designed the service level agreement

similar to those defined within the Department [of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy’s ABG program, because we’ve always had the intention that this will form part of ABG. The SLA... says the speed is 60% of peak speed, 85% of the time, with a network availability of 99.5%” The new service will be soft-launched over the next fortnight via retail channels and will also be offered through the telco’s wholesale customers, with Optus Business addressing the mining and construction sectors in particular; an ABG product is expected within a 4-6 week window. Pricing is still being determined, but Optus expects to charge around A$200 for the 6Mbps /1Mbps service and 3GB of data, with the option to ratchet up to a 30GB monthly quota. “We’ve identified that there’s a lot of high-bandwidth

users out there... so we’ll be able to pitch all the way from a very small business to a very large mining site,” said Leake.

“It will take time to implement the proposed NBN solution; we’re providing a solution that offers customers an option to get higher speeds now if they want it ... [and] unlike the spot beam technology that’s being proposed currently by NBN Co, ours... gives you that national beam coverage,” said Leake.