Harbour ISP signs 1000 NBN satellite customers

NBN reseller Harbour ISP has signed up 1,000 residential and business customers to the satellite service Sky Muster.

NBN launched the satellite back in October with a second satellite scheduled for later this year. Sky Muster brings high-speed broadband access to regional Australians who aren’t eligible for a physical NBN connection.

NBN opened up the wholesale product to a select few number of resellers last month and expects the number of full-time Sky Muster customers to hit 85,000 by June next year.

Harbour ISP owner and director Charles Tym said there were a lot of opportunities around Sky Muster that haven’t been identified yet.

“This is the biggest investment in telecommunications in the last 50 years. The government spent $2 billion on it, so there’s definitely a huge investment by them,” said Tym.

“The primary application is the logical one, but there’ll be other things that come out of the woodwork. For the first time, people have the opportunity to work from home. This is also the first time that regional services are faster than many city people.”

Harbour ISP has also built its own channel around Sky Muster, with Leading Edge stores in Dubbo, Broom and Charlestown reselling connections. Even though the company is based in the regional NSW town of Mudgee, Tym said Harbour ISP can sell Sky Muster “from Lord Howe Island to Christmas Island - and anywhere in between".

Tym only sees one problem: “People will want more data”. Sky Muster speeds currently reach up to 25mbps download, and 5mbps upload. 

There are only seven Sky Muster resellers at the moment, as Tym said the requirements are "fairly stringent".

“You have to meet a lot of hurdles around financial capability, technical capability, sales and marketing. You also have to have a data centre presence and backhaul, which is quite expensive.”

Other resellers includes Activ8me, Ant Communications, Clear Networks, IPSTAR, reachnet and Sky Mesh.

Harbour ISP was spun out from Harbour IT when Canon acquired that company in September 2014.