Telstra replaces rusting Cocos Islands antenna

Telstra has replaced a 30-year-old satellite dish on the Cocos Islands that provides connectivity to its 600 residents.

The new Cocos Islands dish (courtesy Telstra).

The new 7.3 metre antenna — "down to the last nut and bolt" — was shipped to the islands and constructed by a team of Telstra engineers.

Maintenance reports had indicated its predecessor was rusting and in need of replacement, the carrier said.

"If a severe tropical storm occurred, a rusted and weakened antenna could twist out of shape, or worse, parts could tear away," it said.

"While redundancy is built into the equipment in the antenna's system, there's no backup for the actual antenna, which is a critical piece of infrastructure.

"Its failure would result in a loss of communications for the whole Cocos Islands."

The Cocos Islands are about 2750 kilometres from the Australian mainland, about midway between Australia and Sri Lanka.