Businesses in a notorious internet connectivity black spot in the Melbourne suburb of Braeside now have fast and reliable web access – and without the NBN.
The improvement is a result of Summit Internet’s new fixed wireless broadband tower installed on top of a commercial building in Braeside.
Summit Internet CEO Greg Lipschitz says his team has been busy connecting businesses to the service since the new tower went live earlier this month.
“Many businesses in this area were battling poor connectivity previously; so this represents a very welcome and positive change for local Braeside businesses,” he said.
Local businessman Gerrard Lowe of Lowe Financial says “Summit have been excellent to deal with. Our whole office is very happy with the new faster internet service.”
Businesses in Braeside haven’t been alone in their internet issues. A recent survey of more than 1,000 small businesses across Australia found a majority of respondents were experiencing negative impacts on their efficiency and productivity as a result of poor broadband services.
While issues relating to speed and reliability are more prominent in regional and rural Australia, metropolitan black spots such as the one in Braeside aren’t uncommon.
“Summit Internet is stepping in to fill these service gaps in metropolitan areas where viable,” said Mr. Lipschitz. “We run fibre to a suitable building in the general area, then use our robust wireless technology to deliver a top quality service to other premises.”
Mr. Lipschitz stated what his company offers isn’t just a band-aid or workaround, it’s a fully-tested commercial-strength solution.
“Summit Internet is able to offer businesses cost-effective unlimited data plans with fast, reliable speeds plus access to the latest VoIP Hosted PBX solution.”
With fast internet now a critical service for businesses, Mr. Lipschitz says Summit Internet are leading the way in turning on high-speed and highly reliable broadband for business in Melbourne’s most affected suburbs.
With plans to add another 3 base stations before Christmas 2017, Summit Internet is set to be the leader in wireless broadband telecommunications.
Businesses and commercial building developers in metropolitan areas throughout Australia interested in learning more about Summit Internet’s business connectivity solutions can contact us on 1300 049 749.
So, you show up to work and expect to be able to work right?
Wrong!
If you’re a customer on the NBN then you can expect extended outages right throughout the working day.
This notification is to let you know that we will be performing network maintenance work. Due to this activity the services listed below will experience a loss of connectivity for up to 18 hrs 0 mins during the change window.
NBN estimates interruption 1 (Listed Above) will occur between:
Start: 23rd Oct 8:00AM
End: 23rd Oct 4:00PM
NBN estimates interruption 2 (Listed Above) will occur between:
Start: 24th Oct 8:00AM
End: 24th Oct 4:00PM
NBN estimates interruption 3 (Listed Above) will occur between:
Start: 25th Oct 8:00AM
End: 25th Oct 4:00PM
Whilst the NBN might be cost effective, a solution which doesn’t work is far more costly to your business.
Ask yourself, could your business be off the air for days at a time?
If the answer is no, then the NBN is not the right solution for your business.
Days of internet interruption will cost your business thousands in lost revenue.
It’s also going to cost you thousands in staff wages with everyone sitting around unable to work.
How about your phones? With the NBN, your phones are all using Voice over IP which is reliant on your NBN working.
So let’s recap on why the NBN is bad for business
NBN thinks it’s acceptable to undertake long outages and maintenance during business hours
NBN has no service level agreement or rebates for outages and downtime.
NBN doesn’t guarantee time to restore services
NBN outages impact your business in lost revenue and wages
NBN interruptions means your business has no land line phones
Does this sound good for business? No, I don’t think so.
Summit Internet specialise in business grade internet services. Our services are on when you need it during business hours.
Business grade service level agreements protect you with response and restoration time frames. We’ll also provide a financial service credit if we breach on our service level agreement.
We stand behind what we provide. We put our money where our mouth is. We’re Summit Internet and we’re for business.
My team and I are here to help you and would love to provide your business with an amazing fibre internet service.
Ready to make the switch? Call us on 1300 049 749 and join thousands of other businesses who have already made the switch.
No matter what type of business you are running, staying connected and using a reliable internet network is a must. If you are having problems with your current internet connection, you should seriously consider upgrading to a better option, one that will provide you with maximal stability.
Let’s take a look at a couple of reasons why bad internet speed can impede or even ruin your business.
Less productivity
The first thing that gets hit by slow internet speed is the overall business productivity. The majority of tasks within a business environment are now finished over the internet. No matter what company you are working for, your team certainly relies on a cloud solution that helps you more easily collaborate.
Slow internet means that you are going to struggle with upload and download times. Owing to the fact that all of the documentation is online, chances are that you are going to lose hours with the usual daily tasks, as syncing with the cloud will take more time.
The overall result? Drastically reduced productivity, as your team has to wait for the documentation to upload in order to continue working on the next task. Things get even more complicated if you are working with a remote employee over an unstable internet connection. Simple tasks that can take minutes unnecessarily turn into hours of work.
Missing deadlines
From the moment your business starts working with other clients, you will need to make promises that you will deliver your product or your service in a particular time frame. Meeting deadlines and respecting what you have promised is a powerful foundation for building a respectable, trustworthy and professional business. Building this reputation takes a lot of time, but if you are working with inadequate speed, you will start missing those deadlines.
This is why here at Summit Internet, we provide our clients with reliable and high speed internet solutions. To make sure that you are going to save as much time as possible, it is best to rely on internet connectivity that can deliver high bandwidth for your whole company.
With a bad internet connection, you are going to start missing your deadlines sooner or later, making your whole business untrustable. This will cause an increasing number of clients to get away from your company, and finding new ones will become much more challenging. In order to avoid this scenario from happening, it is best to rely on a high speed internet network that will help you easily transfer business data and also save time for your business.
Getting more done for the same amount of time is a principle that all companies try to respect, and a high speed internet network is one of the best ways to succeed.
Direct loss of revenue
There are specific cases in which having a reliable and fast internet connection are crucial for business growth. Many online stores choose to host their websites on a service provider server, but in order to have all of the control, sooner or later, this system needs to be transferred in-house. Simply take a look at Amazon, an online store that is one of the best server space providers globally.
These are the moments when it is absolutely necessary that you have a flawless internet connection, as having your website down for only a minute can cause thousands, if not millions lost in revenue, depending on the size of your business.
This is something that a business cannot afford, because not only does it lose sales, but the customers are also more likely to head over to the competition and continue doing business with them. Therefore, besides facing a direct financial loss, you are more likely to lose your customers as well.
Slow business growth
Gone are the times when creating a single business and running it was enough. In order to stay competitive in the market today, it is necessary to create a strategy that will allow you to grow every year and squeeze out your competition. The last thing you want to happen is a big business popping up in your town offering more competitive prices, simply because they scaled at the right time.
This whole process of business growth can be significantly slowed down by a slow internet connection. As already mentioned, the negative impact on team productivity, meeting deadlines and keeping customers is going to impact not only your growth rate, but also limit your potential for any growth at all.
Communication issues
Video conferencing can be used to effectively lower the expenses a business has. But, with an inadequate internet speed, this type of communication turns into a challenge and a waste of time.
Another part of communication revolves around customer support. Having a good internet connection allows you to flawlessly communicate with your customers, as you are able to immediately respond to their requests.
This is one of the business tasks where you really don’t want to be late, as other businesses will try to outperform you, making it easier for the customer to give their trust to someone else. Therefore, if you want your customer service to be able to respond to numerous challenges, having a high speed internet connection will help greatly.
All this shows how important a role a fast and reliable internet connection plays in all types of businesses. It is a foundation that enables company teams to remain relaxed, productive and efficient. Having a slow internet connection will directly affect the mood in your company, as employees are going to be nervous during their work hours, which is also going to impede their productivity.
Therefore, make sure that you are going to use a high speed internet connection from the moment you start your business. It will create a pleasant work environment in which employees are going to stay focused on doing the best work they can.
Good communication is the most valuable asset in any business. Businesses seek new ways to improve it and bring it to the next level. But, at one point, when it gets perfected, businesses have to turn to technology in order to improve further.
And technology is the only thing that can unravel the secret of staying connected at all times, despite the geolocation of the people communicating. And, most of the technology I am going to write about in this article is already in our hands. When put to proper use, the employees can communicate by using in-house phones or softphones on their PCs, laptops, Android and iOS smartphones and Macs.
Here are the technologies and the preferred mindset, both of which are the root of the “staying connected, wherever you are” secret.
Identify Your Business Needs
There are a lot of technologies that can enable your business communication to be geographically unrestricted. But, before you pick one, you have to identify your business needs. Here are some questions and answering them will significantly narrow your search down.
Are your offices scattered across the country/world?
Is your business growing rapidly?
Is your market local, national, international, or all three?
How often are you and your employees on the go?
Are you selling exclusively online or in physical stores? Maybe both?
Does your company have an in-house customer support call center?
After answering these, you will know to identify the communication system able to meet your business needs. Furthermore, when you know what you need, communicating with vendors will be way easier and they will able to offer you custom tailored solutions.
At this point, you should also start considering software designed to make communication and collaboration streamlined and easy. But, let’s not get into this right now. We will come back to it later in the article.
Web Based Technologies
Voice over IP (VoIP)
A typical conference or small meeting room won’t cut it if your employees and managers are on the go, nor will they help if you are working with a remote team. Also, knowing the number of each employee or office can be a daunting task, especially for large businesses.
Thanks to VoIP technologies, the conference room has been reinvented and placed in the cloud. You won’t be able to see the people participating in the conference call, but you will be able to hear them loud and clear even if they are thousands of miles away.
VoIP powered communication happens through the web. They are established via a local network connection. One of the neat perks of using VoIP is the ability to assign one single office number to an office which routes to cell phones of that department’s manager, workers – everyone.
The system is able to send voicemails via email, route calls to any assigned number, and deliver calls to workers despite their location. One thing is certain, VoIP is capable to keep you connected.
Video Conferencing
Video conferencing technologies are similar to VoIP, except they bring the camera into the picture. This solution is excellent for firms that emphasise on vivid interactions even between remote workers and teams.
With video conferencing, workers don’t need to be physically present in the offices. Whenever they are needed, they can be called to interact with their colleagues in real time. Video conferencing allows for a better connection, as it allows staff to see each other’s facial expressions and hand movements.
PBX Phone System
The PBX Phone system is capable of bringing the much needed competitive advantage to a corporation that installs and starts using it. When it comes to phone systems, the PBX system is a cutting edge cloud based technology available at low
With PBX phone systems, employees can stay as efficient as they were in the offices. All of the communication is established through the Internet, which makes this type of phone system very flexible and efficient. And, upgrading from legacy systems to a PBX is really simple and easy.
If you want to stay connected, you have to start using premium business internet services. If you are basing your communication over the Internet connection, you should really make sure that you get the best one for your company. There are several options on the market:
IP VPN Private Network Solution – if you have scattered offices and a remote data center, this type of network solution will enable your employees to share files instantly and use emails, video and voice communication options. This type of private network solution works on both Fibre and Ethernet connections.
Ethernet and Fibre – this type of Internet service will get your business a high quality, reliable, super-fast Internet connection.
Mobile Internet – if you want to experience communication without any obstacles by using internet over your mobile carrier networks, you should go with a carrier that supports a 4G connection.
ADSL – this type of connection was proven as reliable over the last decade. If you are not in need of high internet speeds, ADSL is a completely viable solution.
Business Software
Software as a service (SaaS) companies have flooded the market with all kinds of business software solutions. There are literally thousands of them, so thread carefully. Here are the tools that can improve your communication and streamline your work process:
Project Management Software – this tool makes project planning, task delegation, and task tracking easier.
Knowledge Base Software – a great tool to start building a knowledge sharing culture in your business. It can also be used to publish a self-service help centre webpage and improve customer support.
Instant Messaging Software – Classy chatting software tailored for business. Some advanced tools even have the GPS feature; quite a neat option if you want to track your sales teams.
The bottom line would be to keep your company’s communications infrastructure updated at all times. But, there is another important side of the story. You also need to identify your business needs and goals so that you can invest smart.
When you are faced with these types of decisions, it is important not to rush them. Take your time, get help from managers, do some research, or ask for a professional consult. Only then you will be able to settle for a reliable and effective communications system that can meet the needs of your business model and your customers.
The information revolution is firmly underway. Businesses that fail to keep up with their competitors will most likely not survive. In almost all industries, customers expect a certain level of service in terms of online presence. This includes social media forums, multimedia content and services like mobile apps or website applications.
The current stage of the revolution is driven by new methodologies like cloud services, video communications, media sharing and remote working capabilities.
Why does your business needs Fibre? Your customers expect it and your competitors are probably using it. Fibre is quickly becoming the norm for communications. The capabilities it gives companies are essential for growth and survivability.
Here are 10 of the most important benefits of Fibre
Speed and Power. A Fibre internet connection is typically 10 times faster than a DSL connection. This gives companies access to many services that would be impossible to use if they were on a slow connection.
Access to the cloud. A few years ago, cloud services were limited to mainly storage and retrieval of data. Now, it’s possible to replace entire datacentres with cloud services. The catch is, you need to have a high-speed internet connection to see the benefits.
Reliability. Traditional internet services like DSL depend on copper wire infrastructure, the same wires that are used for telephone lines. Fibre uses underground cables that are made of a glass like substance that’s resistant to wear and tear.
Service quality. The old telephone wire system uses analogue signals to transmit data. Fibre systems use digital transmission, which is more reliable for getting the correct message through.
Bigger data allowances. Because Fibre is so much faster than alternatives like DSL, providers are able to allow their customers to use more data per month at lower costs. The increased speed of transmission, along with the capacity of the physical Fibre cables, reduces the chance of congestion on the network.
Greater upload speed. In a traditional DSL system, the speed that users could send information was roughly one tenth of the speed that they could receive information. In other words, it would take 10 minutes to upload a video that took 1 minute to download. Most Fibre lines are able to keep the upload and download speeds almost equal.
Lower latency. Latency is the time it takes for information to arrive at its destination. When using services like email, latency is not a major concern. If services like Voice over IP are being used, high latency can make them unusable. Fibre cables transmit data at the speed of light, minimising latency as much as possible.
Interference reduction. Traditional DSL connections are susceptible to interference from electrical signals. The signal sent on a DSL cable is very similar to a telephone call, if there are electrical disturbances from things like poorly insulated cables, they will interfere with the internet connection. Fibre does not suffer from this. The cables send beams of light along glass tubes, electrical interference does not affect them at all.
Increased security. It is fairly simple to “hijack” a telephone wire. With a Fibre line, criminals would need to dig up the cable and physically break it in order to “hijack” the connection. This would terminate the connection and alert the authorised users.
Increased productivity and employee satisfaction. Having a reliable, high speed connection to the internet allows employees to get more work done. Research is easier and communications are faster. A high-speed connection will also give employees access to things like Facebook and YouTube during their breaks.
While there are many benefits to using Fibre, it can be expensive. For most businesses, the cost is easily offset by the benefits and increase to employee productivity.
In business these days it’s necessary to have a reliable internet connection. Your business and its internet connection are complementary. The kind of internet connection you need depends on what kind of business you have.
It goes without saying that if you’re a one man band who does minimal online work a Fibre service of 100Mbps would be overkill. Conversely, running an online film editing company on a 4G service would be equally preposterous.
So what is the best kind of internet connection for your business?
ADSL2+ & NBN
Whilst ADSL & NBN are cost effective it can actually end up costing you a lot more than you bargained for in lost productivity and downtime.
Both of these services are deemed “consumer” and don’t carry the same level of service assurance that true business ethernet and fibre services come with.
What do we mean by service assurance?
Service Assurance relates to how quickly your service runs, how quickly will the provider respond in the event of a problem, how quickly will a problem be fixed and if you will receive a rebate if your service isn’t running properly or is down.
Will I get the full speed on ADSL and NBN?
Both ADSL and NBN are speeds “up to” services. This means that whilst you may order a 25/5Mbps NBN service, it may only perform at 18/3Mbps. Similarly, ADSL theoretical maximum is 24/1Mbps, but rarely performs at full speed. This is due to a number of factors, mainly, the underlying technology of the copper network, distance from the exchange or node and network contention ratios.
If you run a small team or a business where an “always on” internet connection isn’t important, then an ADSL or NBN service may be suitable for your business.
If the internet is super important to your business operations, a Fibre or Ethernet Internet service is more suitable.
Ethernet and Fibre Internet
This is the most common type of connection that we provide at Summit. Fibre and ethernet internet services scale from small businesses all the way up to large enterprises. If you use cloud services like Office 365 and Google Apps, have multiple offices with a VPN, do a lot of video conferencing, need a dedicated internet service to upload or store files on cloud-based storage services or just need guaranteed speeds, then Fibre is the service for you.
Ethernet and Fibre services also have “symmetrical” speeds, meaning they have the same download and upload rates. The other reason businesses choose Ethernet and Fibre services is that they aren’t “best effort.” They’re guaranteed to be stable at the given speed, so if you’re on the 100/100Mbps plan, then that is what you get – 100Mbps download and 100Mbps upload.
Business Fibre and Ethernet services also carry Business Service Level Agreements which guarantee performance, uptime and fault restoration. In the unlikely event of an issue, you may be eligible for a percentage of your monthly fee as a service level credit.
Fixed Wireless
Fixed Wireless is a service which uses microwave point-to-point wireless connections from the supplier tower or basestation to your premises. Some businesses, especially in remote areas, cannot always get a dedicated fibre service. In this instance, Fixed Wireless is a good solution because it is also a symmetrical service that allows you be on the same upload and download with no issues. Fixed Wireless is also a good option as a failover service as it can serve as a good backup to keep your business running smoothly if you have complications with your wired service.
Telstra 4G Mobile Broadband Data
Telstra 4G Mobile Broadband is great for businesses that are on the go or have staff that need network access when offsite. However, the service transmits through the Telstra 4G mobile towers, so there can be complications when users are not in mobile range. Most connections these days run through 4G technology that sometimes gets even better speeds than fixed services. This type of connection is useful for pop up shops, very small businesses who need a very small amount of data or as a contingency plan.
As you can see, there are benefits and drawbacks to each type of data service. If your business doesn’t rely heavily on the internet, a 100Mbps Ethernet connection would be of little use, while a slower connection would be a problem if you do a lot of teleconferencing. Determining why you need your data connection will help steer you in the right direction when it comes time to choose which type to go with.
