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Starlink in Australia

By
Geovian
●
Published 2026-07-24
Starlink in Australia

We're midway through 2024 and things are starting to heat up in the Starlink space.

Written By: Geovian
Date: July 21 2024

[Originally written in 2020] For those of you who don't know what Starlink is, listen up. You know who Elon Musk is right? The guy and his company Tesla are behind such innovations as Tesla Battery Banks, Tesla cars, the Space X rocket program and also the Starlink Satellite service for global Internet. That's right. Global Internet, going head to head with land based giants such AT&T, Verizon, Vodafone, Bell, British Telecom (BT), Telstra and many others.

Space X and Starlink is guaranteed to be a game changer, in that their coverage will reach hard to access locations around the globe, and be able to increase transmit speeds well beyond the terrestrial levels we see now. Many disadvantaged people in remote locations will now have faster access speeds than those more affluent and tech savvy slickers living in the cities. How ironic. The average download speeds are over 200mb per second, while upload speeds are around 50mbps. These speeds completely blows away 3G, 4G and 5G speeds, making them just about obsolete.

Being an Australian resident, I am particularly interested to see what the impact of Starlink will be on consumers outside of the Metropolitan regions of our vast nation, and what this will mean for those in rural areas and of course those living in the Outback.

Space X had to seek permission from the Australian Government to obtain a license to deliver its services into Australia. Initially, this was going to be to rural and Outback areas only, with the Metropolitan regions being prohibited mainly because the Australian Government has a vested interest in the NBN scheme, as in the National Broadband Network scheme, for which it has invested millions of dollars already.

I suspect that if Starlink was made available to Metro regions it would kill off the NBN in double quick time, even if Elon Musk says that Starlink at this point in time is better suited to low population densities such as rural and outback areas. Despite this statement, I am certain that it will not stop Internet obsessives living in Australian cities to sign up if and when it becomes officially available. Hopefully by then, Space X and Starlink would have put more satellites up in the sky, interconnectivity between them will have improved, so too the technology to make it all happen.

In telecommunications speak, Metropolitan areas around the six largest Australian cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast strip, Adelaide and Perth) are zoned specifically. Everything else is zoned as Area 74. When Space X/Starlink were first issued a license to operate by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), it was issued for Area 74 only.

However, in recent weeks, it appears that some users inside the metro zones are getting coverage, as reported by Australian industry observer Chris Vanderstock on his YouTube channel. Whether this is a technical glitch on Starlink's part or whether this is an undocumented feature - we are none the wiser at this point.

Understanding how Satellites work

Yes, there is a bit of science involved, and it revolves (excuse the pun) around the curvature of the planet, the best orbital paths for satellites to travel and how far up in the sky the satellites are positioned.

Starlink global coverage is not equitable no matter where you are on the planet. Some locations will be better off than others. For instance, there is no coverage for either polar regions. Locations on or around the Equator may have inferior coverage because the satellite's path does not directly fly horizontal to it only over it, and it's not helped by the Equator having the widest point to point circumference globally. The sweet spot appears to be the lines of the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, as well as several degrees north and south. However, coverage will definitely improve by having more satellites in orbit.

As it stands, the Starlink satellites are placed in a lower vertical orbit than some of the more longstanding and traditional satellites that have been circling the planet for years. I've read that they are positioned 550km up, which doesn't really seem like a lot. This means that uplink capability is faster because the distance it has to travel to you on the ground is less.

Satellite dish placement and line of sight

When installing your satellite dish, it is important to have a good understanding of your installation location, vs the satellite trajectory, the point of the horizon and if there are any obscuring objects such as other houses, trees etc which are in the way of your line of sight to the horizon, relative to where the dish is placed.

Living on a hill with a 360° radial view would be the ultimate location however its also kind of rare. Conversely, living within a steep sided valley won't help your cause either. In the Outback of Australia, I'm certain that location will make an ideal spot to set up a Starlink dish. Does this mean that Australian city folk are going to migrate to Alice Springs, Mt Isa and Broken Hill? I hope not.. Lol.

This is a similar sort of exercise to putting solar panels up on your roof and trying to obtain the maximum amount of sunshine to hit your panels. The only difference is that satellites operate 24-hours a day so your placement isn't based on sunlight but the maximum clear line of sight to the horizon point before the satellite disappears off your radar. Assuming of course that another satellite is following in its path to continue your uplink connection.

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, point your dish north facing, and in the Southern Hemisphere point south. Because that is the direction in which the satellites are travelling. If a professional is doing this for you they should already be aware of this configuration detail.

Well for starters, the access speed for downloading and uploading is incredibly fast. Many of you won't know what do with yourselves, considering the third world status of Australia's Internet malaise.

Setting up a Starlink dish is similar to setting up a Foxtel dish. You probably need to determine where in your house you're going to have your Starlink peripherals located and of course the appropriate cabling to go from them, through the house and back up to the roof. For that you'll need a professional installer to do it for you, like a cabler, builder or electrician. If you live in an apartment or a leased premises, this will be an issue.

As far as the Starlink kit itself is concerned, you don't actually get a lot. You get the dish which is quite large, some mounting brackets, a power supply (this thing does require a bit of juice, upward of 90 watts) and a modem, which is connected to your existing home network's router. Depending on how good you are in terms of configuring your router, you may actually be able to combine the speeds of Starlink with your existing service, let's say NBN if you're in Australia, to maximize the speed potential of your connection to the house. Apparently it is possible, but I'm thinking that once people have got Starlink up and running they will sever their NBN connection, and good point too, why would you bother paying for two services?

From what I've seen, the Starlink modem looks to be very lightweight and flimsy, and very narrow when standing up. It won't take a lot to knock it over. It probably needs some plastic feet or stabilisers, like what you see on Netgear routers to keep it upright. A note for Starlink's design team, please take this suggestion onboard.

  • Mobility - Starlink is not like Mobile WiFi at present. That is, you can't take it on the road with you. And this makes sense as the satellite dish would constantly need recalibration to retain an uplink. However, I am certain that this will be overcome in the next few years or less, mainly because Tesla are soon to roll out their forthcoming Tesla Model Pi smartphone which will have a satellite connection to the Starlink service built into the phone. Devices connecting to Starlink while on the move is something consumers will be screaming out for. Look on YouTube for more about the Tesla Model Pi.
  • Political Interference - Countries such as China, Iran, Afghanistan and Belarus would obviously frown upon disrupter technology like Starlink to bypass Orwellian control over their population. Other than deliberately shooting down satellites from ground based artillery and causing international outrage in the process, or deliberately cutting off the supply of Starlink kits to customers and revoking any license to Space X/Starlink, these countries will surely get their heckles up regardless.
  • Satellite Orbiting Overcrowding - Is this going to be an issue? The Astronomy Community seems to think so. They say that the reflective light off satellites as they orbit will severely impact the vision quality of viewing the night sky for deep space objects. This is something to follow up on, and whether or not it escalates to a point where something needs to be done about it.

Securing the Starlink service operates much like a crowd funding exercise. You pay an upfront deposit (in the US it's USD$100, in Australia it's A$150). You then sit in the queue. A few weeks out from delivery, you'll be asked to pay the remainder for your install equipment/kit, which could be anywhere in the region of $500 upward.

The ongoing monthly cost is expected to be USD$100, in Australia it will be around A$130, though prices are expected to change as it does with most monthly plans operated by telcos to try and induce business.

In Summary

Starlink's arrival is for me, a welcome addition. For far too long I've had to put up with an inadequate service and pay an extraordinary cost for it, which is akin to daylight robbery. As stated above, Australia, where I live, truly operates on a third world network when it comes to the Internet. Some of the clowns that are operating the telecommunications policy in this country really need to join the circus. They are utterly hopeless. It takes a disrupter to come along and put the fear of death into them, knowing their current business model is about to head the way of the Dodo. Goodbye and good riddance.