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Rural Australians to be on par with city dwellers
Fri, 22nd Jul 2011
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Rural Australians will have access to satellite network coverage that will rival coverage in urban centres when a new $1 billion satellite network is completed later this year, the network builder says.

Globalstar has just successfully launched six second-generation satellites from Kazakhstan, adding to the six which launched last October and with two more launches planned before the end of 2011.

Peter Bolger, managing director of Globalstar’s Australian partner Pivotel, says Australians will see an improvement in service quality within months, leading up to the completion of the network in 2013.

"The improved data speed will be possible once we have completed our extensive network upgrades,” Bolger says.

"Effectively, rural Australians will have access to 3G-like mobile satellite services, and the increased service offering will make for some brilliant innovations in terms of handset functionality.”

When the network is completed the data transfer rate will be up to 256 kbps, compared with the current 9.6kbps.