NBN Co to start satellite multicast trials

NBN Co will soon begin a six-month trial of multicast services on Sky Muster to aid education departments and schools in delivering distance education.

The technical trials are set to begin on August 21 and conclude around the end of this year, the network builder said in test agreements published over the weekend.

Those selected to test the satellite service have to be aligned with a state or territory education department that participates in the government’s distance education and broadband working group.

They must also have “in place an existing multicast application delivering lessons to students over satellite”.

Multicasting allows a service provider to inject data or content once at the network-network interface (NNI), where it is then replicated to any number of premises.

It has been available on the company’s FTTP network since 2012, when it was introduced for use by internet TV providers.

Distance education students can already take advantage of an “educational port” on their in-home Sky Muster setup. This provides quota for education purposes only, outside of what the home gets for its regular retail NBN service.

When the strategy was announced back in 2015, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield flagged the eventual launch of multicast services over satellite to further enhance digital education provision.