News

A generational change is occurring within the telecommunications sector in Australia.

For the past three years the NBN has been a rolling out across the nation. In August this year the NBN reaches the Gold Coast. For exact dates when your home or place of business will have NBN services go to: www.nbnco.com.au and enter your address. Availability has not been finalized for all locations yet but if you’re address has been scheduled you need to start planning.

Under NBN legislation, all telcos must relinquish their infrastructure and offer NBN Services exclusively. That means that, within 18 months of services becoming available you must switch to an NBN-supplied service from a local supplier. There are a hundred suppliers across the country and you need to select which you are going to use before your current service gets turned off.

Selecting a supplier is not a trivial matter, particularly for retail businesses which have telephone, fax, and EFTPOS and may be Lotto services for newsagents or Medicare billing services for medical centres. Businesses should document their needs and then canvas potential suppliers for quotations.

One cohort that will be disadvantaged will be cable customers who currently enjoy Internet’s speeds in excess of 35 megabits per second. The standard NBN Service is 10 megabits per second and to reach cable-equivalency will be more expensive.

The bottom line:

• monitor the NBN availability dates for your area
• start the process of selecting your preferred supplier of NBN Services
• establish your new service well in advance of your old service being turned off.

Happy communicating.

By:

Graham Williamson
Gold Coast IT Forum Committee Member 

Bio: Graham is an experienced IT Analyst and Consultant living on the Gold Coast. He is the author of the new book “Identity Management: A Business Perspective”.