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Summit Internet
Who We Help

Infrastructure That Doesn't Take a Bite Out of the Mission

Not-for-profits run more sites, on tighter budgets, with fewer IT staff than almost any other sector. Summit connects head office, your community centres and your op shops on one account and one bill, with phone routing that gets a caller to a real person, and honest advice about which services you genuinely need.

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The Connectivity Challenge

Not-for-profits carry an unusual shape of problem: the operational complexity of a much larger organisation, funded by budgets that are scrutinised line by line, run by a team that has no spare capacity.

Sites are the first part of that. A mid-sized community organisation might have a head office, two or three community centres, a couple of op shops and a program space in a building somebody lets them use cheaply. Each of those needs internet, most need a phone, the op shops need EFTPOS that works, and every one of them was probably connected at a different time by a different person on whatever plan looked cheapest that month. The result is five providers, five bills, five support numbers and no one person who knows what is where.

The phones are more consequential here than in most sectors, because of who is calling. A person ringing a community organisation is often ringing about something urgent, and they are frequently ringing because a website told them to. If that call rings out, or lands in a voicemail box nobody has the password to, the cost isn't a lost sale. It's someone who needed help and didn't get it. Organisations running a helpline or an after-hours service have the additional problem that the person who should answer at 9pm changes daily, and the usual fix, diverting a line manually or publishing a staff mobile, fails silently.

Funding shapes everything about how you can buy. Much of your income is tied to specific programs with specific reporting obligations and specific end dates. That makes multi-year contracts on infrastructure genuinely risky, because a service tied to a program site is only needed while the program is funded. It also means the cost has to be predictable: a bill that varies month to month is a problem for an organisation reporting to a board and an auditor against a fixed budget.

Then there's the deadline pattern nobody outside the sector appreciates. Grant applications and acquittals have hard dates. A funding round closes at 5pm and the portal will not care why you were late. Annual reporting, DGR obligations and audit season all compress into the same weeks. For those days, the connection is as operationally critical as it is in any commercial business, and an outage is not recoverable by working late.

Fundraising creates the opposite problem: a spike. A campaign, an appeal, a tax-time push or a piece of media coverage sends traffic, donations and phone calls all at once, on a day you have chosen in advance. That is the one day of the year the phones must absolutely work, and it is often the day an organisation discovers the limits of its setup.

Volunteers and public spaces add their own wrinkle. Community centres offer wifi to the people who use them. Volunteers come and go with their own devices, and rarely have IT induction. Keeping public and guest access separate from the systems holding client records is a real requirement, not a nice-to-have, and it is one that a domestic-grade setup in a hallway cupboard does not address.

And underneath it, client information. Case notes, referrals, health and family information: some of the most sensitive records held by any organisation, kept by teams without a dedicated security function, under privacy obligations that apply regardless of your size or your funding.

How Summit Helps Not-For-Profits

  • Every Site on One Account and One Bill

    The immediate win is administrative. Head office, community centres, op shops and program spaces all on one account, one phone system and one bill, with one number to ring when something breaks.

    For an organisation where the finance function might be one part-time person and a treasurer on the board, collapsing five vendor relationships into one is not a minor convenience. It removes reconciliation work every month and it makes budgeting and board reporting straightforward, because the number is the same each month and it is one line.

  • Helpline and After-Hours Routing That Reaches a Person

    Summit's cloud phone system handles the routing patterns that community organisations actually need, without anyone remembering to set a diversion.

    • Time-based routing: business-hours calls to the office, after-hours calls to whoever is rostered on tonight
    • Ring groups: an incoming call rings several phones at once, so answering does not depend on one person being at their desk
    • Escalation: if the first phone doesn't answer, the call moves to the next automatically
    • A single 1300 number: the number on your website and your printed material stays the same regardless of which site or person is answering
    • IVR menus: route intake, donations and general enquiries separately so the urgent call is not queued behind an administrative one
    • Voicemail to email: nothing sits in a mailbox nobody can access, and messages are timestamped

    Changing who takes calls tonight is a roster change, not a job for whoever locks up.

  • Predictable Cost, and Honest Advice About What You Need

    We would rather sell you the right service than the biggest one. If a small op shop needs a modest connection and EFTPOS that stays up, that's what we'll quote, and we'll say so plainly when a site does not need what head office needs.

    Because the whole account is with us, the bill is one predictable monthly figure. That is easier to budget, easier to acquit against a grant and easier to explain to a board than five variable invoices.

  • Backup for the Days That Cannot Move

    Acquittal deadlines, audit season, tax-time appeals and campaign launch days are fixed. Summit's 4G backup fails over automatically when a connection drops, so the portal submission, the donation page and the phones keep working. On the days that matter most this is the cheapest insurance in your budget.

  • Program Sites Without a Long-Term Commitment

    When a service is tied to a funding round, it should not commit you past the funding. Talk to us about the term you actually need rather than the term that suits us, and where a site is short-lived or a building is borrowed, a 4G service can often cover it without a fixed install at all.

  • Separating Public Wifi From Client Records

    If your centre offers wifi to the people who use it, that access should have nothing to do with the network holding case notes. We provide the connection, the addressing and, where it helps, private connectivity between your sites so internal traffic never crosses the public internet. Your IT provider configures the separation inside the building; we'll talk to them directly about it. If you don't have an IT provider, we'll tell you plainly that this is the part worth paying someone for.

Services That Matter to Not-For-Profits

Everything below comes from Summit on one account, one bill and one number to ring. Tap any one for the detail.

Talk to an expert

Not sure which option is right for your business?

Book a short call with one of our network specialists. Tell them how your business actually runs and they will tell you which access technology suits it, which ones do not, and why. If the cheaper option is the right one, they will say so.

Book a call with a specialist Call 1300 049 749

Why Not-For-Profits Choose Summit

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    We Size It For the Organisation You Are

    The fastest way to waste money in this sector is to buy an enterprise solution for a five-site community organisation. We don't run a not-for-profit discount, so the value we add has to be in getting the specification right: quoting what fits, telling you when the answer is the cheaper option, and telling you when you should spend the money on your IT provider instead of on us. We'd rather do that and keep you for a decade.

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    One Provider Across Every Site

    Internet, phones, helpline routing, numbers and mobiles all from Summit, on one bill. For organisations whose administrative capacity is the genuinely scarce resource, that is the part that shows up in your week rather than just in your budget.

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    Our Own Network and a Team You Can Escalate To

    Summit has been an independent Australian carrier since August 2000, holding ACMA Carrier Licence #388. On fixed wireless we own the network, so a fault is ours to fix. When you ring you reach our own team, and if you need to escalate, you can.

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    We Understand the Funding Cycle

    Program end dates, acquittal deadlines and grant-tied sites are the reality of how you operate, and they should shape the contract rather than being ignored by it. Tell us what your funding looks like and we'll structure the services around it.

Other services businesses pair this with

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Why Australian Businesses Choose Summit Internet

  • The Summit Team have always been a pleasure to work with; we highly recommend their services. Thank you for the continued support.

    Paul Braithwaite

    3 months ago

  • We recently moved our dental practice over to Summit for phone services, and the experience has been excellent from start to finish. The team has been responsive, professional, and incredibly helpful throughout the entire setup process. The transition was smooth, any issues were addressed promptly, and communication was always clear and efficient. Reliable phones and internet are essential for a busy practice like ours, and Summit has delivered exactly that. A special thank you to Michael for his patience and ongoing assistance during the transition. Highly recommend Summit to any business looking for reliable service and great customer support.Read more

    Elli Darabi

    3 months ago

  • The best service !!! Got issue fixed out by Greg ^^

    白大倫

    3 months ago

  • The whole team at Summit have been great from the initial onboarding to the rapid responses from Max when we need to make changes or additions to our services. Can't recommend them enough!

    Aaron Klaver

    3 months ago

  • As the I.T. Manager for Hydronic Systems Australia, Summit helps provide me and our companies with consistently stable Business Grade Internet, backed up by a dedicated Fixed Wireless Broadband connection. They also saved us a serious amount of money on our mobile phone bills. We have had no serious issues, and our business has been rock-solid under there great service. Highly Recommended.Read more

    James Paterson

    4 months ago

  • Prompt and efficient service. Highly recommend

    Elliot Bell

    4 months ago

  • We now use Summit across our real estate network. Great family business, reliable and their attention to detail is outstanding. Highly recommend.

    Ryan Bell

    4 months ago

  • As a reseller, we primarily work with Summit’s 4G services and have been very impressed. The plans are affordable, flexible, and well suited to our customers—especially for internet failover solutions. The sales and support teams are responsive and genuinely helpful, which is why we’re proud to partner with Summit Internet. We happily recommend them.Read more

    Mal Skinner

    4 months ago

  • After working with another ISP for several months to deliver a critical internet service for a major international sporting event, we were ultimately advised that the required upgrade was unlikely to be completed prior to event week. This left us facing a significant risk to service delivery. After exhausting all other options (and a few sleepless nights) we came across Summit Internet. From the initial conversation, Allan immediately understood the severity of the situation and quickly engaged his technical delivery team. Michael “Radar” was on site within days to assess and finalise a solution. Despite challenging conditions, including large trees and other obstructions, he worked tirelessly to design and implement an alternative approach. Leveraging an adjacent building, a temporary NBN connection, and a wireless link into the comms room, the solution was delivered within 24 hours of the initial site visit. Not only was the outcome faster than expected, but it was also more cost effective and delivered higher speeds than originally promised by the previous ISP. Over the course of the event, the service handled terabytes of data and supported hundreds of concurrent users without a single speed or performance issue. I cannot thank Summit Internet, particularly Allan and Radar enough for their exceptional service, technical expertise, and commitment to delivering under pressure. Highly recommended.Read more

    Adam Hastie

    4 months ago

  • Fausto and the staff at Summit are amazing. We have had nothing but fantastic service from start up to problem solving issues. The system is easy to use. Would highly recommend this service provider.

    Jo Bodhankar

    4 months ago

  • Summit internet recently set my small business up with a local land line number and a soft phone that runs off an app on my mobile - getting my personal phone number off the internet and being able to distinguish between business and personal calls is a game changer. Whole process took less than a week, and is super cost effective. Highly recommend.Read more

    Alex Holly

    6 months ago

  • Great service, efficient and smooth from start to finish!

    Marija Cavlina

    9 months ago

Reviews from Google. Read all reviews on Google

Frequently asked questions

Do you offer not-for-profit or charity pricing?
No, we don't run a separate not-for-profit discount, and we'd rather tell you that up front than have you spend a meeting finding out. What we do instead is size the services to what you actually need rather than to what we'd like to sell, and tell you plainly when the cheaper option is the right one. In practice the saving that matters in this sector comes from consolidating multiple sites onto one account and off five separate plans, which is usually a larger number than any discount would have been.
Can you handle a helpline or an after-hours service?
Yes. Time-based routing sends after-hours calls to whoever is on call, ring groups let a call ring several phones at once, and escalation moves an unanswered call to the next person automatically. Nobody has to set a diversion at the end of the day, which is the step that gets forgotten.
We have op shops, a head office and two community centres. Can they all be on one account?
Yes, and that is usually the single biggest improvement we make. Every site on one account, one phone system and one bill, with one number to ring. Calls transfer between sites, and your 1300 number can route to whichever site should answer.
Our program funding ends in eighteen months. Are we locked into a long contract?
Talk to us about the term you need. We would rather match a service to a funding period than sign you to something that outlives the program. Where a site is short-lived or in a borrowed building, a 4G service often covers it without a fixed installation at all.
What happens if we lose connectivity on the day a grant acquittal is due?
This is exactly what 4G backup is for. It fails over automatically, so the portal, your email and your phones keep working. Given that acquittal and reporting deadlines don't move, we think backup is the cheapest genuinely useful thing a not-for-profit can add.
Can we offer wifi to the people who use our centre without putting client records at risk?
Yes, and keeping those separate is important. We provide the connection and the addressing, and can connect your sites privately so internal traffic never crosses the public internet. The separation inside the building is configured by your IT provider, and we'll deal with them directly on it. If you don't have one, this is the part worth paying someone for, and we'll say so.
We rely on volunteers and don't have IT staff. Is this going to be complicated?
It shouldn't be. Once it's set up, a hosted phone system is changed through a simple interface, and things like who takes after-hours calls can be adjusted without technical knowledge. We'll set it up with you, document how it's configured, and when you ring us you'll reach someone who can make the change with you on the phone.
Do you support organisations outside Melbourne?
Our fixed wireless network covers Melbourne, so that product is Melbourne-only. Phones, 1300 numbers, mobile SIMs and business NBN we provide nationally, so a national organisation can run one phone system across every state even where the underlying connection at a site comes over NBN.
Get started

Fewer Bills, Fewer Vendors, and a Phone That Always Reaches Someone.

Tell us how many sites you run and what your funding cycle looks like. We'll come back with one account, one bill and honest advice about which parts you actually need.

Call 1300 049 749 or request a callback · Mon-Fri 9AM-5PM AEST

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