Almost 2100 Hume premises with active Sky Muster NBN satellite connections will be able to access up to 50 per cent more peak data and twice as much off-peak data from October. 

Federal Member for Hume Angus Taylor said NBN Co would provide the extra data at no extra cost to retailers, although how the retailers structured their plans was up to them.

“The Government has heard the concerns from customers that Sky Muster did not supply enough data allowance for some customers, particularly for businesses, and asked the NBN Co board to find ways to deliver more data to customers,” Mr Taylor said.

"And now, for the first time, we expect customers to be able to purchase plans of more than 100 gigabytes a month of peak data.

“We've listened to customers' concerns and acted.

"This increase in data is a great first step and there's more on the way, including plans created solely for businesses.

"This is fantastic news for Sky Muster users in Hume’s rural and regional communities and Sky Muster consumers all over Australia.”

As at 1 June 2017, there were 2064 Sky Muster active Sky Muster connections in Hume, with about another 6500 premises eligible for the service.

An extra 35 gigabytes of peak data would allow, for example, a student to do 25 more hours of watching university lectures each month, or a photographer to send an extra 3500 pictures a month.

Under Labor, Sky Muster users were set to receive just 35 gigabytes of peak data a month in total.

“The Government’s announcement this week follows the huge improvement in Sky Muster stability, with outages down 90 per cent in April on what they were in September 2016,” Mr Taylor said.

Mr Taylor said the NBN rollout in Hume had reached the 60,000 premises milestone in less than four years.

“We’re on track to connect almost 67,000 Hume premises by the end of 2018,” he said.

The new NBN Sky Muster plans are expected to be available through retailers in October 2017.

Sky Muster and Sky Muster 2 provide broadband services to the 3 per cent of Australians, generally in rural and remote areas, who would never get broadband any other way.

Sky Muster delivers speeds of up to 25 megabits a second - fast enough to run multiple high definition connections. Retailers may however sell plans, which deliver either up to 12 megabits/second or up to 25 megabits/second.

The satellites shoot 101 beams down from 36 kilometres above the Earth to cover every inch of Australia's 8 million square kilometres of land mass, and external territories.

Visit the NBN Co website for more information http://www.nbnco.com.au/

A list of satellite retail providers can also be found here https://birrraus.com/satellite/satellite-providers/