The Australian government's Measuring Broadband Australia program has concluded, resulting in thousands of functioning SamKnows test routers being remotely bricked after June 30, 2026. Volunteers received notifications that their accounts would be closed and devices disabled, despite the hardware remaining fully operational. This decision highlights potential inefficiencies in managing long-term IoT device lifecycles within public monitoring programs.
Background
The Measuring Broadband Australia (MBA) program, run by the ACCC since 2020, uses volunteer-provided hardware to monitor NBN and other broadband performance across the country. SamKnows, now part of Cisco, supplied the whitebox routers used for these continuous speed and latency tests.
- Source
- Ars Technica
- Published
- Jul 9, 2026 at 02:10 AM
- Score
- 6.0 / 10