Rural Wireless Solar Network Extension
Published: 9/7/20, 1:33 PM
In some cases, due to terrain or obstacles such as trees, a household looking at connecting to our Rural Wireless service may not have line-of-sight to our local Rural Wireless tower.
Even an object as simple as a tree can create problems, if a tree stands between your house and the local tower the service may work during winter but come summer when the tree grows its leaves, it may become completely unworkable.
In the first instance, we try and work around line-of-sight issues by running cables around the property (up to 100m) or installing a Local Network Extension. These are our most cost-effective extension options so check out the page we've linked above.
Where a Local Network Extension isn't appropriate, we can do a Solar Network Extension.
How it works is we identify a location on your property that can see our tower (typically a hill), that can also see the other buildings that you are wanting to connect, including your home.
The Solar Network Extension package includes installing a pole, solar panel, and two heavy-duty batteries.
We will then connect a regular Rural Wireless receiver and an additional wi-fi repeater that provides a 5km local coverage extension. We then proceed to connect all the residences with regular installations with each installation signing up for its own plan with Full Flavour.
If there is a neighbouring property that would also like to connect, we do encourage this as this helps reduce your cost of establishing the repeater.
Upon completing the installation, the solar repeater becomes part of our network which we commit to maintaining for a minimum period of 5 years, in line with the life expectancy of the equipment including batteries.
Full Flavour retains ownership of any equipment supplied.
Charges
Full Flavour charges a one-off $5000 fee for establishing a Solar Network Extension. We are happy to facilitate the cost-sharing of all parties that will connect (e.g. if there are 5x individual connections, we can bill $1000 to each connection to pay).
All joining neighbours need to have a clear line of sight to the new solar repeater and be within 5km distance of it.
If you're a contract milker or sharemilker, it might be worth having a discussion with your landowner about sharing the solar repeater costs as it'll improve connectivity to the farm long term.
