VAST Retransmission Service, Dandaragan Shire

To access television services, residents in regional
Australian centres have relied heavily on aging
retransmission services that were often sponsored by
federal government grants. These legacy systems needed
an upgrade with the emergence of digital technologies,
however the Federal Government had elected to only fund
around 90 of what was close to 450 regional broadcast
sites. The replacement system was based on a satellite
service known as Viewer Access Satellite Television (VAST)
which was tasked with delivering the same multi-channel
broadcasts that had become standard in metropolitan
areas. The service offered regional centres more than
a threefold increase in television channels, in addition to
providing high definition content which was previously
unavailable.