Labor Commits AU$3 Billion To Boost NBN In Face-Off With Starlink

The Australian Labor Party is pumping funds to elevate the standards of the National Broadband Network (NBN) to better position it in the face-off with Elon Musk's Starlink satellite company, which has been known to lure customers away, causing the former's revenue to dip.

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland is confident that the NBN fiber can surpass Starlink in network capabilities, adding that the latter can in "no way" match the capabilities of NBN's fiber network, reported The Sydney Morning Herald.

Rowland, however, acknowledged that customers who were unable to access full fiber network speeds were diverting toward Musk's Starlink, which offered speeds of 20-100 Mbps monthly for AU$139/month + AU$599 hardware competing with NBN's fiber speeds (50 Mbps) at AU$105/month.

The federal Labor government has earmarked a whopping AU$3 billion to upgrade the NBN and provide 600,000 additional premises with full-fiber connections.

However, according to a report by ABC.net.au, NBN is losing customers to Starlink in many rural Australian regions.

Grant Vowles, a resident of Wynyard in north-west Tasmania, said Starlink has been a game-changer for him as it delivers a download speed of over 200 Mbps -- a staggering 10 times faster than his previous NBN connection, which was often unreliable.

Vowles' home is a hub of connected devices, all linked to the internet via Starlink, a satellite internet service provided by SpaceX. As of 2024, Starlink had already connected over 200,000 Australians to its low-earth orbit satellites.

Meanwhile, Labor plans to concentrate on places with inadequate internet connectivity, especially those that still rely on copper cables, as part of this strategy. Larger families with numerous devices connected to the internet at once would find this update suitable since it will allow homes to access higher-speed plans.