Interview with ABC Western Queensland

HOST, ASH MOORE: Well if you live in a rural or remote area that can't get access to the internet then you have to use internet delivered by satellite in orbit above you, and by the end of the year NBN Co's expected to launch a new satellite which it says will be up and running by the middle of next year, and will solve rural and remote Australia's internet woes.

But in the meantime people on the interim satellite service are struggling to get reliable and consistent internet for needs such as online backing, general business, basic internet searches, and perhaps most importantly children's education. School of the Air is increasingly delivered online, and uses more and more online content. Well in response to concerns raised by better internet for rural Australia advocates, such as Alpha grazier Kristy Sparrow and the ICPA, the Federal Government is creating a working group to consult on issues affecting users of remote internet services. And NBN Co recently tried to speed things up by limiting all satellite packages to a maximum of 20 gigabytes.

I spoke to Paul Fletcher, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Communications yesterday, and I asked Mr Fletcher if the haircut that NBN Co gave to internet providers made any difference.

PAUL FLETCHER: You're right Ash that one of the things that NBN has done is worked to try and overcome some of the difficulties with the interim satellite service. And just to explain for a second the interim satellite service is the one that people are on now. It was put in place by the previous Government, it… the commitment was a 6 megabit per second down, 1 megabit per second up peak [audio error] using transponders on satellites owned by a range of companies including Optus and IPSTAR. It was a perfectly sensible thing to do to contract with existing satellite operators, we've certainly never criticised that. But we have been critical of the fact that the amount of capacity that was acquired was enough for 48,000 end users, but it was positioned as being - as having enough capacity for 250,000 end users.

And so what happened was there was a very sharp drop in the average service levels because people were facing substantial over - excess demand, and what you've ended up having happened is that in the words of NBN users a small number of so-called top talkers are using up quite a large proportion of the available capacity, and that's degrading the experience for everybody.

And one of the difficulties was that the average amount of capacity that's available per end user on the system is nine gigabytes per user, per month. And yet there were some retail service providers who were selling packages with a capacity of up to 60 gigabytes a month. In other words the capacity on the system was being materially - much more was being sold than could actually be delivered. Now that's an unsatisfactory state of affairs. It's absolutely no fault I hasten to add of customers if somebody sells you a service and says this can - you can have a download of 60 gigabytes per month well people will quite reasonably assume well that's what I'm entitled to do . But the problem is that it was just more capacity that had been sold than could actually be delivered.

So that's the reason for this haircut as you describe it; the decision that's been taken to wind back to 20 gigabytes the download limit. We understand that that is causing a lot of frustration, and the issue you have raised is this; you've just asked me well with that reduction in download limits has that produced any appreciable improvement in speed and the experience for the end user if we're rationing it more, is that producing the claimed benefit in terms of then a more even quality of service across all the end users. That question was also put to me in a long conversation I had with Kristy Sparrow last week, and I've asked NBN for some data on that point. I don't have it yet but - because she has… that was the first time that had been put to me and I wanted to find out what the answers are so I will go away and find out the answers and see what is actually happening so that we can advise people who are interested in this.

ASH MOORE: I've yet to hear anybody talk about rationing when it comes to the fibre optics in metropolitan areas, but you're already talking about rationing on NBN Co's satellites. Is this really going to be a metro comparable service?

PAUL FLETCHER: Ah, look it certainly will be a metro comparable service, so the speed will be 25 megabits per second down, five megabits per second peak speed up. And so that it is considerably faster than most people are getting in metro areas now. And I suppose what I want to be clear on is we want to make sure that this is designed so that people have the capacity they need. So, you know, I've used a jargoned term there which is really what we're trying to ensure is that we've got a pricing structure which meets people's needs and makes sure that there's the capacity that's available, that it's used most effectively and so that for example if we have - as we do, people with significant capacity needs for education for example, that we've structured the offerings that are in the marketplace and in particular what's delivered by the retail service providers to end-users so that the capacity is there for people to have their distance education needs met. So the point therefore is to make sure that we've got a pricing structure which ensures that people can get a basic service with the speed that's required and with a decent allocation of data and then in turn there's additional tiers of download available at appropriate price levels.

Now, the details of that are yet to be finalised but this is really all about learning from the experience of the interim satellite service and not making the mistake that was made there where ultimately the service to everybody has been frankly pretty disappointing.

ASH MOORE: It's 17 to nine. Music from Madness in about five minutes. But right now you're listening to ABC Western on ABC North West Queensland with me Ash Moore, and I'm speaking to Paul Fletcher the Parliamentary Secretary to Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications. Mr Fletcher, was the interim satellite service ready for the advancement of a distance education curriculum into the online sphere?

PAUL FLETCHER: Look I think that's a really good question Ash. One of the things that motivated us in organising this working group was to say let's get into one room, the people who design a distance education curriculum and implement it and the people who are responsible for providing the satellite service which is the means over which most people get their connectivity. I think that's been a very useful exercise so that we do have those people directly talking to each other.

Again, talking to Kristy Sparrow last week she made the point that things change quite materially in Queensland at least - she said in about - I think she said it was about 2012 when there was a new curriculum adopted for all students across the state, not just specific to distance education, but that turned out then to have some significant implications for distance education students and the number of hours each day that they were needing to be on the system.

So the whole purpose of trying to get this group together is to make sure that we are having that end to end conversation between the distance education folks in the state and territory departments of education and NBN as the operator of the satellite broadband system that the long term satellite service due to commence operations around mid 2016 to make sure that there's the best possible fit between the needs of distance education students based upon the curriculum and other things that are delivered to them by the providers of distance education and then the satellite connectivity to support that.

ASH MOORE: In the meantime it's clear that the interim satellite system is now choked and people are suffering, online lessons are dropping out - you hear reports about this all the time here on ABC Western Queensland, will you consider buying more space on existing satellites just to try and ease this congestion?

PAUL FLETCHER: Look that has been put to us and there has been some more money spent, so about $20 million more was spent on increasing the capacities that the average amount of capacity per end user has increased by about a third, but with the long term satellite service due to commence mid next year we think a much more - a more sensible way to proceed both in terms of getting best value for taxpayers' money but also in terms of getting the best outcome for users is to focus on the long term satellite service getting that up and operational as quickly as possible.

ASH MOORE: Will people who are on the Next G network with Telstra, if they want to will they be able to switch to this satellite service?

PAUL FLETCHER: Yes they will and that's a really important question, I'm glad you've asked it of me. Today because of the capacity of limitations on the interim satellite service there's a rule that says if you are somewhere where you can get terrestrial (*) mobile coverage then you cannot have a slot on the satellite service. Tomorrow, once the long term satellite service is in place that rule will be removed and so once the long term satellite service is in place the way it will work is as an end user, as a customer you will be in either the satellite zone - if I use that term, or the fixed wireless zone if you happen to be in a smaller rural town or village or within say 10 or so Ks in such a location, and then if you're in the cities you'll be in the fixed line zone and you'll get one of fibre to the premises, fibre to the node, cable, HFC, hybrid fibre coax, fibre-to-the-basement and so on. So you've got effectively the three zones is perhaps the best way to think about it and if you're in the - if you're not in the cities or the big towns where you're getting fixed, if you're not in a smaller country town or village or within say 10 to 20 Ks radius where you're getting the fixed wireless, then you'll be in the satellite zone and you'll be able to get the satellite service regardless of whether it also happens to be the case that you can get a mobile service where you live.

ASH MOORE: Paul Fletcher, Parliamentary Secretary to Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications.

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