Homes and businesses across the Federal electorate of Mallee can access more data on Sky Muster satellite services.

NBN Co will provide additional broadband capability from today.

NBN Co is offering permanent enhancements to its Sky Muster Plus offering, and in response to the COVID-19 threat, providing a temporary increase to data allowances for standard Sky Muster plans to support the increased data needs of rural and regional Australians.

Member for Mallee Anne Webster said the extra Sky Muster data would support the increased internet needs of residents and small businesses in the NBN satellite footprint.

“I know firsthand from speaking to the Mallee community that internet connectivity is vitally important to how locals go about their daily lives,” she said.

“With more of us staying in and relying on our home broadband for work and study, this Sky Muster data boost will make a real difference, helping us stay connected and productive over the coming months.”

From today, unmetered activities will expand to cover all online content and applications, with only two exclusions – video streaming and VPN traffic – which will continue to be metered.

Under the new offering, about 70 percent of all data use is expected to be unmetered compared with about 30 percent under the current plans, and the product will support unmetered use for education applications and apps such as Skype and FaceTime for the first time.

NBN Co will also introduce a new 25GB entry plan offering 25GB of peak data and 25GB of off-peak data for households with lower data needs that still need the flexibility of unmetered data, and the option of ‘top up’ data, should customers exhaust their monthly metered data allowance, in the coming months.

It will provide satellite broadband retailers with temporary access to an additional 45 gigabytes of download data for each standard Sky Muster plan. 

This will double the average monthly download limits of plans offered by Sky Muster retailers to 90GB.

NBN Co will review demand and determine the appropriate level of allocation for an extra two months.

It has also announced that retail service providers would have access to up to 40 percent more capacity, or Connectivity Virtual Circuit, CVC, at no additional charge for at least three months.

This applies to all NBN access technology, including fixed wireless and the Sky Muster satellite service.

NBN Co has also committed to suspend the managed disconnection of legacy copper services to the 70 percent of regional premises that can access NBN via fixed-line services, and to suspend all non-essential work on its fixed wireless network to minimise disruptions to services and keep regional Australians connected.

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