Austar was an Australian telecommunications company founded in 1995 as Community Entertainment Television (CETV).

[10] Austar's main business was subscription television, serving customers outside of the major metro areas.

It was a four-tuner set-top box equipped with two satellite tuners and two terrestrial tuners available both for viewing and recording standard definition digital free-to-air services including full electronic program guide data for Seven Network, WIN Television, Prime Television and Network Ten.

Because it is equipped with Macrovision copy protection, content saved to the MyStar cannot be transferred to other media (such as VHS or DVD) without the use of something such as a video stabiliser.

[15] Support for Dolby Digital Surround Sound was available on selected programming when connected to appropriate equipment, however the Mystar box wouldn't control the volume when using optical or coax, the volume had to be controlled by the device it was plugged into.

It also had support for Closed Captioning and four different aspect ratios (4:3 Cropped, 16:9 Letterbox, 16:9 Postcard and 16:9 Widescreen).

It also had USB and Ethernet ports, but they didn't have a clear function as yet, and were likely to be used for updating the decoder.

[citation needed] Austar planned to use MyStar HD as its cornerstone set-top box, with true video-on-demand launched in 2010, and more access to web content becoming available after that time, building up to a complete interface redesign for its set-top boxes in late 2011 or early 2012.

The plan was originally to upgrade MyStar and phase it out in 2014, however, in 2013, Foxtel decided to convert their IQHD units to satellite connections and made them available to "Austar" customers in November 2013.

After the closure of Telstra's CDMA network, Austar mobile would only offer services through Optus.

[citation needed] In August 2011, Austarnet announced its exit from the Internet business and indicated that services would be discontinued on 30 September 2011.

In 2006, Austar United and Unwired together with Soul Converged Telecommunications formed AUSAlliance for the purposes of obtaining funding from the Australian Government's Broadband Connect Infrastructure Program and rolling out a regional broadband network.

[20] In 2008, Austar entered into an agreement to sell its 2.5 & 3.5 GHz spectrum licences to the OPEL consortium (Optus & Elders) for A$65 million and enter into a wholesale agreement with Optus for the resale of products operated by the OPEL consortium.