Wednesday, 22 February 2023

Our community has experienced its fair share of environmental threats and challenges over the past few years.

These events have reminded us of the need to plan and prepare for future challenges, as set out in our recent Resilience Strategy, and ensure our services and facilities remain operational in times of need.

A reliable broadband connection is crucial to that goal, so Council has signed a game changing deal for satellite broadband.

Northern Beaches Council has become the first council and first government agency in NSW to sign a contract with telco Vocus Satellite – Starlink.

Engineered by SpaceX, Starlink provides high-speed connectivity via a constellation of low earth orbit satellites the size of pizza boxes.

Satellite broadband doesn’t require the traditional infrastructure of cables and fibre optics which can be disrupted during floods and fires.

If a fixed line goes down our systems and applications can continue to work.

Our child care centres, for example, will be able to continue to communicate with parents if fixed lined networks are disrupted.  

Council will also avoid heavy costs associated with network engineers troubleshooting unreliable network connections or black spot locations. It will also reduce network downtime thanks to dual reliable links installed at critical locations.