Australia could save $1 billion by scrapping a planned National Broadband Network (NBN) upgrade and giving each household Elon Musk‘s Starlink satellite internet hardware instead, a Liberal National Party senator says.
Queensland Senator Matt Canavan responded to Communications Minister Michelle Rowland’s announcement this month that Labor would spend $3.8 billion on improving the network by calling the plan a “farce”.
“It would be cheaper for us to buy every Aussie household a Starlink,” Mr Canavan said X this week.
“9.3 million households, $299 per Starlink = $2.8 billion.
“And a billion in change leftover! What a farce.”
His comments came after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Ms Rowland, the architect of the government’s failed Misinformation Bill, pledged $3 billion to speed up the network and stop customers from using Starlink instead.
NBN Co. will invest another $800 million into the network, and the total of $3.8 billion comes on top of $2.4 billion pumped into the company by the government in October 2022.
The Opposition is not expected to fight the upgrade.
Starlink launched in Australia in 2021 and said last year that it had 200,000 customers enjoying speeds 10 times faster than the NBN.
Mr Canavan’s calculations were based on a sale price for the Starlink kit, but the regular price is $599 for the hardware plus $139 per month for unlimited data at speeds of 20 to 100 megabits per second.
The NBN charges $105 per month for its fibre packages which offer speeds of 50 megabits per second during peak usage times.
However, even when the full kit price is taken into account the NBN loses more than $1 billion per year, pays almost the same amount on interest on its debts, and cost $35 billion to build.
Industry consultant Paul Budde told The Sydney Morning Herald the NBN would not turn a profit until 2030 and that more customers would switch to Starlink in the meantime.
Labor’s upgrade will include 622,000 new fibre-to-the-node connections, and when completed in 2030 would give 95% of households fibre NBN access.
Mr Budde told the ABC the remaining 5%, mostly in rural areas, would still need services such as Starlink.
Header image: Left, Matt Canavan (Facebook). Right, a Starlink panel (Starlink).
