An incident last December 21, 2021, resulted in a satellite outage. NBN Co said it was still working with partners and vendors to reconnect some Sky Muster users. Even if most Sky Muster and Sky Muster Plus satellite services were restored soon after, there are still approximately 0.5 percent of NBN satellite customers who continue to be affected. This is around 600 premises.

A Better Internet for Rural Regional and Remote Australia spokesperson said that several members were affected. The spokesperson said, “We understand NBN has found a fix to restore the services that have been offline since 21 December and this will be rolled out over the next few days.” 

“It’s disappointing that the outage has taken this long to resolve and that some of our members have been without a connection over Christmas and New Year and during cyclone and fire season.”

The spokesperson further added: “We understand that no technology is 100% reliable, however, we encourage NBN to ensure processes are put in place that prevent extended outages in the future.”

“Particularly when our research shows that over 40% of NBN Sky Muster users don’t have an alternate connection.”

The BIRRR spokesperson singled out SkyMesh for praise in keeping customers and BIRRR members updated during the outage that happened. Stephen O’Shanassy, SkyMesh managing director APAC, said that the outage “significantly impacted the number of calls we have been receiving.”

“The timing and speed of returning to services to customers has not been ideal, especially given how reliable the NBN Sky Muster service has been over the past 2-3 years,” he further added. “But we are now getting regular updates, and the number of customers affected is reducing.”

In line with this, an NBN Co spokesperson sent apologies to customers who continue to be affected by the outage. “Internet providers have also been engaged to enable NBN to prepare dispatching crews to individual premises if a service can’t be restored remotely. As some of the impacted customers are in remote locations, the restoration of those services may take longer than usual.” 

“Whilst NBN has advised service providers of their impacted customers, any customers who are impacted by the outage are advised to report the fault to their retail internet service provider.”

NBN said in an update provided to the press: “Over the last 48 hours NBN Co has successfully restored satellite broadband services to 497 premises of the 573 premises that were impacted by the recent outage. We are working as quickly as possible to restore broadband service to the 76 premises that remain offline and we will provide further updates on our progress.”