Federal government taking a look at LEOsats

The government is looking at the potential for low earth orbit satellites – LEOsats – to improve regional telecommunications coverage.

Delivering the 2022 Charles Todd oration, telecommunications minister Michelle Rowland said she has tasked the Department of Communications to establish a “low earth orbit working group, to help inform government about how this emerging capability might play a role in future telecommunications policy”.

“These rapid developments are bringing choice and a step change in broadband capability to businesses and households in regional and rural Australia,” Rowland said, citing Apple’s recent launch of text via LEOsats as an example.

Currently, only SpaceX’s Starlink is available to Australian users, with the terminal costing $924 and a monthly fee of $139 for a residential service operating at between 50Mbps and 200Mbps download and 10Mbps to 20Mbps upload.

Telstra plans to offer OneWeb services, under an MoU signed in March.

Amazon plans to begin launching satellites for its Starlink competitor, Project Kuiper, in 2023.

Earlier this year, the NSW Telco Authority started putting together a tariff book of LEOsat services.

Rowland also outlined the work NBN Co has undertaken to upgrade its fixed wireless network, a project backed by $480 million from the government.

Part of the money is being spent to improve coverage by overcoming the 14km cell range of a fixed wireless base station.

“This distance is limited by the time it takes for a signal to perform a round-trip between the wireless tower and an end users’ modem, in addition to the time required to decode a particular segment of that signal, known as the ‘RACH” sequence’,” Rowland said.

“NBN Co worked with their technology vendors as part of an extensive research, development and testing process to validate that shortening the RACH sequence would enable the signal to be recognisable on the network at greater distances.

“This enabled an increase in the coverage radius out to 29 kilometres.”

NBN Co is also deploying “miniaturised lens antennae” which Rowland said delivers a threefold-to-fivefold increase in the number of cells a tower can serve.

Rowland reiterated the government’s commitment to deliver broadband services for up to 30,000 families who currently lack a connection, a project to be delivered by NBN Co.