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Hello Roma! NBN Satellite Hits Qld


Roma, located in Darling Downs, South West Queensland, is to get a NBN satellite ground station, it was revealed today.

The facility will be a transmission centre for high speed broadband services to remote areas such as Winton, Bedourie, Burketown and the Torres Strait Islands, and will be up and running by 2015.

The new station, announced by NBN Co, will consist of a single-storey building with two 13.5-metre diameter satellite dishes on a site on Kimbler Road, around 4 km east of Roma.

Read: NBN Invades NSW, Round II

This is in addition to the NBN’s other satellites at Bourke, Wolumla in NSW, WA and Tasmania. 10 such facilities, in all, are to be up and running in three years time.


Click to enlarge
Artist impression of NBN Station Bourke, NSW

The town of Roma itself will also be included in the fibre network.

The NBN’s Interim Satellite Service is already delivering wholesale download speeds of up to 6 Mbps to more than 10,000 premises across Australia.

This is the eighth of 10 such facilities NBN Co are planning to build around Australia and the only one in Qld.

NBN co also say the project will provide a boost to the local economy when construction begins next year.

Around 20-30 construction workers will be required to build the facility.

Local Mayor of Maranoa Regional Council, Cr Robert Loughnan, said the “initiative should help bring south west Queensland into the 21st Century. We look forward to being part of an important national project to connect Australians living in rural and remote parts of the country to the NBN.”

However, the development application has yet to go through the planning approvals process and Council consideration for compliance with planning laws, the local Mayor warned.

The Long Term Satellite Service forms part of NBN Co’s plan to deliver high-speed broadband to every Australian premises by 2021.

NBN Co’s two Ka-band broadband satellites will have multiple high-capacity beams designed to maximise the efficiency of the broadband service specifically for Australia.