broadband Archives

Elon Musk’s Starlink loses out to Amazon in supplying satellite broadband for Australia’s NBN Co.

Simon Thomsen - August 5, 2025 2 MIN READ

Government-owned NBN Co has chosen Amazon’s Project Kuiper’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite technology for high-speed, wholesale fixed broadband to customers in sections of regional, rural and remote Australia. The decision sidelines Elon Musk’s Starlink, which launched in Australia in 2021, and has around 200,000 local customers, and was also pitching for the NBN contract.… Read more »

Other tech

The federal government is tipping in another $3 billion to ‘finish’ the NBN

Simon Thomsen - January 12, 2025 3 MIN READ

The federal government will make another $3 billion equity investment into the National Broadband Network (NBN) to national fibre-to-the node (FTTN) network as Labor and the Coalition begin campaigning ahead of an election due by May. NBN Co will contribute more than $800 million to the plan to upgrade around 622,000 homes and businesses nationally… Read more »

Other tech

It looks like lockdowns are pushing everyone onto faster NBN speeds

Simon Thomsen - August 20, 2021 2 MIN READ

The household fight between parents at work and children learning online for bandwidth at Zoom meetings appears to be driving a shift to higher NBN speed plans for Australian homes. The ACCC’s latest NBN Wholesale Market Indicators Report says around 400,000 residential broadband customers moved to higher speed plans in the June 2021 quarter, just… Read more »

Politics

NBN borrows $2.6 billion via US bonds

Simon Thomsen - April 28, 2021 < 1 MIN READ

The government-owned NBN Co has taken on a fresh $US2 billion (~$A2.6bn) in debt via a bond issue in the US as it seeks to wean itself off federal government funding. The issue was made up of a five-year bond of $US750m and a 10-year bond of $US1.25 billion. The five-year bond will mature in… Read more »

Topic

Just as the NBN roll-out ends, it’s borrowing another $3.5bn to upgrade the network with fibre to the home

Simon Thomsen - September 23, 2020 3 MIN READ

NBN Co. will borrow $3.5 billion in additional debt from the private sector in order to upgrade the broadband network to more than six million homes over the next three years. Just as NBN Co. is “finishing” the national broadband roll-out, federal communications minister, Paul Fletcher will outline the latest investment at the National Press… Read more »

Topic

How to boost you broadband speed with everyone working from home

The Conversation - April 3, 2020 4 MIN READ

With #StayAtHome and social distancing now becoming a way of life, an increasing number of people are relying on the internet for work, education and entertainment. This has placed greater demand on our network infrastructure, reducing the bandwidth available for each user, and is leaving people frustrated at seemingly slow internet speeds. While internet service… Read more »

Topic

Australians are giving up talking to download on their smartphones

Simon Thomsen - January 21, 2020 2 MIN READ

The hunger for streaming services such as Stan and Netflix has seen the amount of data downloaded by Australians jump by nearly 50% in 12 months, the latest ACCC Communications Market Report for 2018-19 has found. And for the first time, the amount of time we spent talking on our phones fell as people… Read more »

Advice

Christchurch startup SafeSwiss is responding to growing privacy concerns through an encryption app

James Ward - July 20, 2017 4 MIN READ

Christchurch-based startup SafeSwiss has developed a communication platform formed around end-to-end encryption, allowing data to be sent securely.

Topic

Data61’s Coviu partners with Health Team Australia to launch regional telehealth platform

James Ward - January 11, 2017 2 MIN READ

CSIRO has announced a partnership between Data61’s Coviu and Health Team Australia, which will see a real-time online video platform rolled across Australia.