Updated: SMBs to ditch business plans in favour of consumer NBN offers?
- 27 July, 2010 12:53
- Comments 2
Small and medium enterprises could increasingly drop their business broadband connections in favour of consumer plans on the National Broadband Network (NBN), according to what is believed to be Australia’s first business NBN customer.
According to Galloway's Pharmacy owner, Stephen Love, who recently signed on as Primus’ first business NBN customer, the NBN could bring both competition and improved services to the small business sector.
“There’s a lot of businesses out there that want the fastest speeds they can get, simple as that, so even if [businesses] aren’t really sure how it’s going to benefit them, I’m sure they will take the quicker speeds and they’re no more expensive than ADSL,” Love told Computerworld Australia.
Previously, the Scottsdale, Tasmania-based pharmacy was operating on a high speed ADSL2+ plan from Telstra, but made the switch to a residential NBN plan with Primus to take advantage of the network's additional speed, Love said.
“I think there’s lots of potential advantages with the extra speed," he said. "There’s lots of applications we use that are fairly intensive, so I’m sure there’ll be some efficiencies in how we operate day-to-day, as well as the potential for new applications that might come on stream."
Love signed up to Primus Telecom's Ultra Fibre Family plan, with 40GB of monthly data quota. The plan enables the pharmacy to operate at a speed of 100 megabits per second (Mbps) downstream and 8Mbps upstream - an asymmetric speed which is abnormal for business plans. The plan is bundled with a home phone, and costs Love $79.95 per month.
Primus Telecom is yet to release its business plans.
Love said his pharmacy relied on high speed broadband to link it to Medicare and Centrelink for confirmation of patient entitlements and for payment transactions.
"Every transaction we do in the pharmacy is using the internet for confirmation through those systems and it’s quite important to us that it happens quickly otherwise you’re left waiting," he said. "Even 10-15 seconds waiting for each transaction really interferes with your work flow, so it’s important that it’s seamless and it happens quickly. Speed is pretty important for us on a day-to-day basis.”
The NBN connected Australia’s first customer at the start of July, through ISP, Internode, in Midway Point, one of the first three NBN trial sites in Tasmania.
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Comments
Raymond
Way to go Primus! you have a customer! bet that makes the Bankers happy!
myne
I work for one of the larger ISP's of the nation in the business support section.
I can tell you all flatly, if you run a business, it is both cheaper and better for your business to simply buy 2 different competitors consumer grade services.
The price is right because businesses get charged more for exactly the same service.
The reliability is right because when one fails, and it will. You will still be running.
Your stress when this happens will be non-existent. You can take the time to sort out the compensation when it's fixed and you wont have any qualms with simply changing one of your providers if they cannot fix it quickly.
I have had to deal with many many businesses that expect a certain level of care that simply cannot be provided. Everything from swearing to tears, to TIO complaints. At the end of the day, there's not a lot that can be done in some circumstances.
Some customers claim they lose thousands of dollars a day.
We might credit their months subscription.
It's not worth putting your eggs in one basket people.
I'd recommend 2x ADSL providers and 1x prepaid 3g stick.
With plans around the $50 mark for 150-200gb, getting 2 such plans will only cost you $100 per month.
For a single business ADSL plan, you'd be looking at more than that for a lot less than 300gb. With no guaranteed time to repair.
The 3g stick is for if there is a fault with the copper network that affects both services. This can happen from a single rainy night, a car accident, or a backhoe. The copper network is very poorly protected from the environment and damage.
Trust me. If you own a business, and you need internet access, plan for your provider to let you down. Hopefully they wont. But if they do, you wont end up screaming down the phone at someone like me who'd love dearly to fix it immediately but cant.
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