The NBN is coming! But what does it mean?

Last week Visium released Zoom Video, a dedicated website for our super affordable megapixel camera packages.  In attendance at the launch were senior representatives of Telstra, our valued telecommunications partner.

We had a fascinating discussion about the future of Australian communications and how, within a very short space of time things are going from the copper age, to the fibre age. OK, we’ll get faster internet so downloading your favourite TV show from the US will be heaps quicker, but what does the NBN really mean for business?

There are two important topics to consider when contemplating the NBN’s impact on your business. One is infrastructure and the other is competition.

Competition

Like trying to build a freight and logistics company in a country with dirt roads, you can’t build a modern business on narrow bandwidth. For Australia to remain competitive in the information age we need fast internet to allow Australian companies to develop modern applications and services that improve productivity and provide export income.

Here in lies the NBN Paradox – by laying fibre around Australia it both enables us to compete against the world, whilst simultaneously opening us up to world-wide competition. All of a sudden an accountant in (insert low labour cost country name) can communicate with Australian business customers using video enabled Skype and other tools, just as easily as the H&R block can around the corner. Any work that can be digitised (and the list is longer than you may first think) will be searching for a home where it can be done most effectively. In a lot of cases that won’t be within Australian borders.

That’s the spooky threat, but as they say all threats are opportunities in disguise. Australian companies are going to need to take a global outlook in the NBN world, whether competing directly against international companies, or local companies that have outsourced a large chunk of functions offshore. The opportunities in an NBN world are huge, for many companies will be able to significantly cut operating costs, and/or find massive new global markets.

Visium for example could just as easily video monitor a site in New Zealand/Singapore/USA as we could in Cairns – The trick is to make sure we are the best in the world at what we do.  So the bottom line on competition? Australian business will have to get very focused and very IT savvy.

Infrastructure Overhaul

Physically what will actually happen with the NBN infrastructure roll out, is a contractor will turn up to your house or business and rip the copper out and replace it with a shiny new fibre cable. At the end of this fibre cable will be a box that lets you plug in a soon to be prehistoric analogue phone handset (you’ll be able to keep your same number/s) and someone presenting you some options to adapt some other services like your Fax. Also at this point you can pick from a number of providers (Telstra amongst many) able to sell you broadband and other services over IP. Expect telco’s and to get very frienldy as the great NBN land-grab gets underway!

Of course if you already have a Voice over IP capable phone system you’ll be able to ditch the phone lines or ISDN and connect it straight to a TISP (Telephone Internet Service provider) and finally be unshackled from monopoly era interstate and international call rates.

How about all the other things in your business that use copper phone lines? Like your security system, EFTPOS, Coke vending machine? Many technologies are going to be able to work still with converters, however many won’t. Alarm panels under some circumstances may be able to dial out with a phone-to-IP converter, but it would remove the ability for a control room to dial back in for arming services and so forth.

So as business owners and managers, you’ll want to look at the following

A) Between now and the NBN’s arrival: We’re buying new equipment that relies on communications, is it NBN ready?

B) When the NBN arrives: To sink money into converting legacy phone dialling equipment to IP, or just invest the money in pure modern IP equipment.

D) When is NBN Co turning up to my place? - learn more here  (The government is about to accelerate the roll out, so this info will update often)

Impact on Security

The ramifications for the security industry are huge. Australian security companies have been resting on their hands receiving kick backs from calls they generate on your phone bill. (If you still have a phone-line dialing alarm panel look for calls made to a 1345 number, you might be shocked) This revenue sharing amounts to a whopping 100Million dollar plus revenue stream that is going to get pulled from conventional security companies. Many will go broke or be forced to ramp up the price of their manpower and monitoring services.

Visium by comparison has been building an NBN era enterprise for the last decade, so we are excited by all this change and ready to help you, our valued clients migrate into an NBN world. Many of you have already adopted our IP Alarm platform so no worries here, this will plug and play into the NBN network.

More good news for your security, our services are going to get faster and more effective. For our control room, streaming video at 100 times the current speed will mean lightening quick response and higher quality video back at our control room for all sorts of money saving services. Because we are the only security company poised and ready for the NBN, we will have to split our services at some point so that IP customers are not encumbered by the difficulties in servicing customers attempting to adapt analogue equipment to a pure IP world. More on this as things develop.

For a long time we have had enough bandwidth to move text around – what the NBN will really do is unleash video as the next powerhouse communications medium in our space and many others (including medical)

Visium is here to help so if you have any queries or concerns please don’t hesitate to contact your account manager.