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-------------------------------------------------------------- This story was printed from ZDNet Australia. --------------------------------------------------------------
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Telstra warns of solar interruption to broadband By James Pearce, ZDNet Australia September 04, 2002 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/Telstra-warns-of-solar-interruption-to-broadband/0,130061791,120267924,00.htm
Telstra has warned users of satellite broadband services that there will be outages during September due to solar activity. The outages occur when the Earth's orbit and rotation places the satellite between the Earth and the sun, which overwhelms the signals from the satellite, according to Telstra spokesperson Kerrina Lawrence. Although the effect is predicted to last only a few minutes, users of satellite broadband experience it twice a year, in September and late March/early April. "It's described as a brief degradation of satellite services," Lawrence told ZDNet Australia, adding that there is nothing Telstra can do about it. "You're talking about the power of the sun compared to the power of a man-made satellite." Lawrence said Telstra expect the impact to be fairly minimal. Many people are forced to use the more expensive satellite option as other broadband technologies are unavailable in their area, but Lawrence denied satellite broadband technology is inferior to other systems. "There are benefits that come with each of the technologies and for many customers using satellite is their only option for high-speed broadband," said Lawrence. "There are also things which affect cable, such as when a cable gets accidentally cut."
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