A new agreement between Telstra and satellite internet brand Starlink has been hailed as ground breaking for regional connectivity, however experts say that we’ve had the right connectivity at our fingertips for years. 

Last week major telco Telstra announced the new partnership, becoming the first provider in the world to offer voice-only and voice plus broadband powered by Starlink to rural and remote Telstra customers in Australia.

However advocates for regional communications access say that the lack of connectivity in regional areas is a myth that often coaxes people into services they don’t need, doesn’t suit them, or that they can’t afford.



“The problem is actually connectivity literacy. If we keep throwing buckets of money at the problem without understanding what the problem is, we’re not going to solve the problem,” said Better Internet for Rural, Regional and Remote Australia (BIRRR) co-founder Kristy Sparrow.

“It’s not demographics in terms of a young person’s or an old person’s problem…we’ve had very tech and digitally savvy people not be able to know all that information,”

Connectivity issues continue to be front-of-mind for people living in the regions, however Ms Sparrow said that most barriers to the internet stem from a lack of awareness and promotion. 

“The NBN connection is available to everyone in Australia, so we shouldn’t have heard stories during Covid of kids doing school in their car,” she said. 

Changing the narrative

While a price disparity continues for some connections between metro and regional, there has been a significant shift in the space in the last decade.

“We’ve spent a lot of time…stopping this whole ‘bush broadband is bad’ narrative, because that narrative actually creates barriers to people,” Ms Sparrow said. 

“We’re never going to get (people) to move to the regions if they think it’s so bad with connectivity.”

With Starlink already being available in Australia, it is unclear what benefits or changes the Telstra partnership will add to the service, and the price points are expected to be announced later in the year. 

Questions remain about whether Australian-based service could come with a higher price-point, and what a push towards this service could mean for Telstra's Universal Service Obligation (USO), which holds them responsible for providing accessible telecommunication services to every premise in Australia where requested. 

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