What is Sky Muster Plus?

Chucking "Plus" after a product name is very much in vogue these days. If it’s not streaming services like Disney Plus, Apple TV Plus or Paramount Plus, it’s internet services like Sky Muster Plus. But what exactly is a Sky Muster Plus?

Before we delve into Sky Muster Plus, we first need to explain what Sky Muster is. Depending on how you use it, Sky Muster either refers to one of two satellites orbiting some 36,000km high above the planet or it’s shorthand for the NBN satellite service. Additionally, Sky Muster is used as an identifier for the NBN Basic I (NBN 12) and NBN Basic II plans that are the cheapest way to tap into NBN Sky Muster satellite internet.

With all of that theory out of the way, Sky Muster Plus is the name for the speediest version of Sky Muster satellite NBN, which can reach up to NBN Standard (NBN 50) speeds.

The only NBN technology in Australia you can choose to have is Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP), and that’s only if you’re willing to upgrade your non-FTTP NBN technology to the fastest, future-proofed tech. That said, if you live in a remote or offshore part of this vast nation, the FTTP upgrade will likely be incredibly cost-prohibitive or unavailable. Still, there’s a good chance your home can connect to the NBN via NBN Sky Muster satellite. Unsure? Punch in your address in the tool below, click ‘Search’ then tap or hover over the information ‘i’ towards the top of the results page to see your home’s internet technology.

If you want to get the standard Sky Muster equipment installation underway at your home, you first need to sign up for a plan. Sky Muster Plus plans can reach speeds twice as fast as regular Sky Muster plans, and you can see a selection of popular picks below from our comparison engine.

For comparison, check out the punchy list below of popular Sky Muster plans from our database.

In terms of who we track in our comparison engine, there are four providers that offer Sky Muster Plus plans:

• Activ8me
• SkyMesh
• IPStar
• Southern Phone

All of these providers sell Sky Muster Plus plans where you need to bring your own modem. For NBN satellite, this translates to an NBN-compatible router. Speak to your intended provider for recommendations or to see if they sell preconfigured routers.

You can also check in with ANT Communications, Clear Broadband, Harbour ISP and Reachnet for Sky Muster Plus plans.

Regardless of the type of Sky Muster plan you’re signed up to, there are some key disclaimers when it comes to speed. For starters, any form of satellite technology is restricted to finite shared bandwidth from the relevant satellite/s orbiting Earth. If a lot of people are connected at the same time, expect speeds to suffer. Ideally, you also want a clear signal between satellite dish on your home and satellite high up in the sky.

Finally, because of how far away the satellites are, it takes time for the signal to be sent and received between satellite dish and orbiting satellite. For all Sky Muster satellite plans, this means you should expect high latencies, which will impact real-time-sensitive online tasks like gaming and videoconferencing.

When it comes to actual speeds, though, standard Sky Muster plans can reach up to 12Mbps download and 1Mbps upload on the NBN 12 speed tier or up to 25Mbps download and 5Mbps upload on NBN 25 plans. Sky Muster Plus plans can technically download speeds of up to 50Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5Mbps.

All forms of Sky Muster internet, including Sky Muster Plus plans, come with a total data allowance, which is separated into on-peak and off-peak times. The big perk of Sky Muster Plus plans is they offer unmetered traffic for all online activities outside of video streaming and virtual private network (VPN) traffic. NBN Co notes that other types of internet traffic may have speeds shaped to 256Kbps during 4:00pm and 11:00pm, which includes the following things:

• Peer-to-peer traffic
• Cloud storage uploads and downloads
• Device operating system updates
• App, software and game updates
• Other app internet activity that NBN Co cannot identify

If you exhaust your on-peak or off-peak data allowance, metered data is shaped to 512Kbps download and 256Kbps upload for the duration of your billing period during peak times, and 2Mbps download and 512Kbps upload during off-peak times. You can speak to your provider about whether they offer data top-ups to get back to full speed. Peak times are between 7:00am and 1:00am, while off-peak times are between 1:00am and 7:00am. Only metered data counts towards your monthly data allowance.