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."
> Although the effect is predicted to last only a few minutes, users of satellite broadband experience it twice a year, in September
...try being a bit more realistic, like hours on end, and beginning in June continuing on an intermittent basis all the way thru to the present.
Then ya got all the probs associated with Telstra on top of that.
Broadband satellite working as per all the hype?
I'd like to see that!