As Starlink surges, is the NBN still a viable platform for regional reach, argues Lee Stephens, executive chair, Meerkat Media.
With the dust settling on the 2025 federal election, it’s time to understand what Anthony Albanese’s $3 billion promise to “finish the NBN” means for rural Australia and the agricultural industry, where the NBN is considered far from finished.
The service reliability of locally delivered broadband, needed to build a thriving, competitive and high-tech agricultural industry has a long way to come. A five-year plan and $3 billion to connect fibre to 622,000 premises, half of which are allocated to rural Australia by 2030, is unlikely to excite many farming businesses who experience regular outages, slow speeds and poor service. Importantly, should a virtual explosion in the take-up of Elon Musk’s Starlink across regional Australia, including government agencies, emergency services, Australia’s Defence forces and agricultural producers give the government cause for concern?
A persistent problem for Australian marketers and advertisers is how to engage with rural Australia where the collapse of local print media, combined with inconsistent broadband hampers the quality of interactions required to help ag business clients communicate with farmers at a grass roots level. The industry spends hundreds of millions of media dollars annually, attempting to influence the purchase decisions of equipment, infrastructure, technology, feed, pesticides and more across Australian farms. Australia’s economic agricultural production output in 2024-25 is set to top $92.1 billion.
The agricultural industry is also culturally important, still having a high number of privately owned and family businesses. Slow or intermittent internet supply impacts all communities, however few more than farmers also grappling with biosecurity threats, remote automation and climate change. More detail on how and when the $3 billion NBN upgrade is delivered regionally as part of the current national masterplan is critical to the advancement and security of the agricultural sector.
Farmers are largely dissatisfied with existing local broadband delivery options. With two satellites 36,000 km from the nearest farm gate, Sky Muster was innovative for its time, however is affected by bad weather, high latency that rules out tele-conferencing and achingly slow speeds. Complaints with current NBN delivery also include slow speeds, outages and unregulated high costs for services provided. The National Farmers Federation has warned that poor connectivity restricts the industry’s ability to communicate, improve logistics and use advanced tools and real-time data analytics. The result is less competitive, less sustainable farming and management practices. Regional and rural communities are so dissatisfied with phone and internet services that, according to the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman, there were over 51,000 complaints between 2021 and 2024.
For ag marketers looking to overcome the challenges of poor connectivity are faced with limited options. Local print, previously a core media channel, has been decimated. Since 2020 over 166 newspapers have shut their doors, 60 per cent of which were based in rural and regional areas.
FTA TV remains the only viable media of scale across regional markets, reaching 9 out of every 10 people per month (2023). The issue for ag marketers is wastage. Regional television licences areas are so large, or worse, aggregated into mega zones such as regional Queensland, delivering essentially the same programming to all households regardless of city, town or rural locations within the licence area.
There are digital workarounds for marketers to target farm owners and employees directly. Where broadband is poor, marketers should look to narrowband opportunities. Established brands can leverage paid and organic search. New brands and on-farm technology solutions are well placed to publish whitepapers and expert reviews via search, social and geo-targeting. Weather app advertising provides frequency, while ACM’s agri network can drive long term reach. A focus on lead generation campaigns, taking the conversation offline is also a viable workaround. Despite the wastage of TV, farm workers often have very specific time of day habits that can be leveraged. While all viable marketing options, they are all less efficient compared to markets with high connectivity.
The obvious alternative is the mass adoption of Starlink. A move already underway by the Australian Navy and almost all West Australian emergency services. Compared to speed tests with Sky Muster during peak period, Starlink is three times faster with a tiny fraction of its latency. Starlink is affordable, reliable and accessible now.
A cautionary tale, however, is playing out in Italy. Since late March Starlink was set to be awarded a USD$1.6 billion (AUD $2.5 billion) contract “to enhance secure satellite communications for the Italian government, military, and emergency services, particularly in remote or high-risk areas”. The tender is on hold over comments made by Elon Musk during European elections and the war in the Ukraine. The NBN was purpose-built to be an Australian sovereign asset to prevent scenarios like the one playing out in Italy.
Regardless of the NBN roll-out outside capital cities, there is a clear need to have sovereign control of a high quality national broadband network that services the needs of regional Australia and Australia’s enormous agricultural sector. Like any infrastructure asset, it is incorrect and naïve to declare the completion of the NBN. The announcement influences future investment, displaces key industries like agriculture and the communities around them.
Whether Elon Musk’s or Jeff Bezos’ new project kuiper network succeeds, a global terrestrial communications and data provider is unlikely to consider Australia’s priority to deliver low-cost social, educational and medical equality via high-speed internet to an estimated 30 million Australians in 2030.
