Reaching the Unreachable: Learnings from a Satellite People Counter Pilot with Myriota

The connectivity gap in remote parks

NSW National Parks manages hundreds of sites across the state, many of them far beyond the reach of mobile networks or conventional internet infrastructure. While our LoRaWAN people counter deployment at Jindabyne worked well in a connected environment, the question remained: what about the truly remote sites - the backcountry campgrounds, isolated lookouts, and wilderness entry points where no data network reaches?

This is the problem that Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite communications promises to solve. And in partnership with Myriota - an Australian LEO satellite company - and NSW National Parks, we set out to test whether people counter data could be reliably transmitted from these off-grid locations via satellite.

About Myriota

Myriota is an Australian company that operates a constellation of Low Earth Orbit satellites designed specifically for IoT data transmission. Unlike traditional satellite services, Myriota's system is engineered for sending small data payloads from remote devices at low cost - exactly the use case of a people counter sending periodic visitor tallies from a remote park location.

The Myriota module is a compact hardware add-on that can be integrated with IoT sensors. It transmits short data packets to passing satellites, which relay the data back to a ground station and on to a cloud platform. Because the satellites are in low orbit, the signal path is shorter and more energy-efficient than geostationary satellite alternatives.

The pilot sites

Two sites were selected for the pilot to test performance across different environments:

• A National Park in Sydney: A more accessible and monitored site that served as a controlled environment for baseline testing. Being within the Sydney metropolitan region, this site allowed for easier equipment access and troubleshooting during the pilot period.
• A playground viewing platform in Southern NSW: A remote location in the Snowy Mountains region, representative of the kind of off-grid site where satellite connectivity would provide the most operational value. This site had no mobile coverage and required satellite as the only viable transmission method.

What we were trying to achieve

The goal was straightforward: install a people counter at each site, connect it to a Myriota satellite module, and validate that visitor count data would be transmitted reliably and received on a cloud dashboard. Success would open the door to deploying visitor analytics at any remote park location in NSW - regardless of connectivity.

Why the pilot was unsuccessful

Despite significant effort on both hardware and software integration, the pilot did not achieve reliable end-to-end data transmission. The key challenges encountered were:

• Satellite pass frequency and latency: Myriota satellites pass over any given point on Earth infrequently - sometimes only a few times per day at certain latitudes. This meant data transmitted by the sensor could sit waiting for a satellite pass for hours before being relayed, making near-real-time visitor counts impractical with the current constellation.
• Data packet size constraints: Myriota's system is optimised for very small data payloads. Encoding and transmitting even a simple count value with timestamps, device IDs, and error checking within the tight packet limits proved more complex than anticipated, and the payload format required multiple iterations.
• Hardware integration complexity: Integrating the Myriota module with the people counter hardware required custom firmware development. Synchronising the transmission schedule with expected satellite passes added further complexity, and intermittent connection issues between the sensor and the satellite module were difficult to diagnose remotely at the Southern NSW site.
• Power management at remote sites: The satellite module added a meaningful power draw compared to a standard LoRaWAN setup. At the remote Southern NSW site, where the device relied on battery power, managing the power budget across both the sensor and the satellite module proved challenging in practice.
• Environmental interference: At the viewing platform site, the physical orientation of the antenna relative to the satellite orbital paths affected reception. Mounting constraints at the site limited the ability to optimise antenna positioning.

What we learned

The pilot may not have delivered operational visitor counts, but it delivered something arguably more valuable for future projects: a clear-eyed understanding of what satellite IoT can and cannot yet do in a remote parks context.

• Satellite IoT is best suited to low-frequency, delay-tolerant data: Applications where a data point arriving hours late is acceptable - such as daily visitor totals or environmental sensor readings - are well-matched to current LEO satellite IoT. Real-time or near-real-time use cases are not yet practical with this technology at most latitudes.
• Remote site access is a project risk in itself: Troubleshooting hardware issues at a location with no connectivity and difficult physical access adds significant time and cost to any IoT project. Remote diagnostics and fail-safe defaults need to be designed in from the start.
• Firmware complexity is underestimated: Custom firmware development for satellite-connected IoT devices is substantially more involved than standard cellular or LoRaWAN integrations. Budget and timeline estimates for similar projects should reflect this.
• Satellite constellation coverage is latitude-dependent: The frequency of satellite passes varies significantly with latitude. Sites in southern Australia have different coverage profiles than those further north, and this should be modelled before site selection for any satellite IoT deployment.
• The technology is maturing rapidly: Myriota continues to expand its constellation and improve pass frequency. The challenges we encountered in this pilot may be substantially reduced within one to two years as more satellites are launched. Revisiting this approach in the near future is worthwhile.

The value of honest pilot programs

Not every technology pilot delivers the outcome that was originally hoped for. But a well-structured pilot that generates clear, documented learnings is not a failure - it is evidence-based decision making in action. The insight that current satellite IoT technology is not yet reliable enough for real-time visitor counting at remote parks sites is exactly the kind of finding that saves agencies from making expensive investments in unproven technology at scale.

For NPWS and similar agencies, the recommendation from this pilot is to continue monitoring the evolution of LEO satellite IoT services, explore hybrid architectures that combine LoRaWAN for connected sites with satellite for the most remote locations, and consider delay-tolerant applications - such as daily environmental monitoring or periodic access point counts - as near-term candidates for satellite IoT in parks settings.

The remote connectivity challenge in parks is real and important. Satellite IoT will almost certainly be part of the solution - just not quite yet in the form we tested. We remain committed to finding it when the technology is ready.