Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.

Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Image by Amanda Slater / CC BY-SA 2.0

Construction work on ten Australian national broadband network satellite ground stations has been completed but it will be another year before they’re up and running. Australia ranks 44th in the world for average internet speeds according to the recently published The State of the Internet Report from Akamai. In rural Australia this can mean it takes three days to download a film and 1.5 hours to download a YouTube video. The satellites will be located in Ceduna, Broken Hill, Bourke, Wolumla, Carnarvon, Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Waroona, Roma and Geeveston and will cover everywhere from areas just outside cities to remote Aboriginal lands. Read more: abc.net.au