Enabling Australia’s Fastest Business Network

23 Aug 2021, by Slade Baylis

You’re at the climactic scene in your latest Netflix binge and the streaming starts to lag. We’ve all been there, the remote poised to throw at Tom Cruise whom is struggling to splutter out “yyyoo oo oo ou com mmm ple ee ee te me ee ee”.   It’s annoying when this happens then, however, when it comes to businesses, high speed data communications is a serious matter.  It can make a huge difference in how you end up transacting with your customers, manage supply chains and collaborate with business partners. In fact, Tech Research Asia found that poor network connectivity ends up costing Australian companies an average of 71 hours of lost productivity per employee per year.  As more Australian businesses pivot their technology to the cloud, fast internet is vital for commercial success.

In Micron21’s own local community, the Bayswater Business Precinct (BBP), the lack of high-speed digital communication was cited as the second largest issue to business growth pre-COVID.  However, since the pandemic, this has now become the number one priority.  The BBP spans across three local governments: Yarra Ranges Council, Knox City Council and Maroondah City Council.  It represents a $16 billion-dollar local economy and is the second largest manufacturing zoned area in Victoria.  Limited and slow NBN speeds, coupled with costly fibre alternatives, has impeded business interconnectivity and capability.  Given BBP’s huge economic contribution, it puts the enormity of the issue into perspective.

Bayswater Business Precinct (BBP)

Australia’s fastest and most affordable network

Micron21 has long been regarded as a leader in innovation.  We were the first Australian data centre to be accredited with the Uptime Institute’s highest rating of being a Tier IV data centre.   Back in 2015, internet coverage was even worse than it is now, so to tackle this challenge, we introduced Australia’s first 5GHz wireless network to the local community. This offered speeds up to 400Mbits to businesses that had no or limited access to the internet.  As a result, Micron21 was recognised at the last Maroondah Business Excellence Awards 2019 by winning the category for Innovation and Technology.

Within Australia, networks with speeds of up to 10 Gbps are not unheard of and are becoming even more commonplace.  With Telstra’s OpticWave services you can achieve speeds of up to 100 Gbps.  However, as expected, the service is quite expensive as are their up-front costs just to get connected.  It was also announced late last year that Bendigo Telco would be rolling out its own local 100 Gbps network to connect businesses. 

With this in mind, Micron21 has set its sights high again.  In order to help local businesses achieve the benefits of high-speed connectivity, we are deploying Australia’s fastest and most affordable network.  The network will boast speeds in excess of 100 Gbps when completed and will come with the unique ability to setup direct business-to-business private networks at no additional charge.

Initial speeds offered will be up to 100Gbps.  However, as things ramp up, the network will be capable of speeds much faster than that.  Theoretically, it is possible to deliver a whopping 6400Gbps - that’s 64,000 times faster than the current technology!  Due to it being a huge project, it will be delivered in incremental stages.  At any rate, it will help create the most highly connected business precinct in Australia. 

Keeping costs low whilst keeping speeds high

The costs of running fibre between locations has historically been astronomically high.  In order to solve that issue Micron21 has thought outside of the box to come up with a way to connect businesses without the sky-high costs usually required and our prices will speak for themselves. 

With typical business-grade internet connections, a 1 Gbps connection usually costs somewhere aproaching one thousand dollars per month.  For anything above 25 Gbps, the costs astronomically increase.  In comparison, the Micron21 network will have speeds of 1 Gbps available from $150.00 per month (ex-GST), and 25 Gbps available from $300.00 per month (ex-GST).  Even higher connection speeds will be available upon request with similar low prices for the speeds offered.

These prices are a fraction of what other equivalent services would cost, and stack favourably against cheap NBN offerings for much slower (and arguably unreliable) connections.

So how did we do it I still hear you ask?  One of the innovations which will help make this possible is what’s called DWDM Fibre Technology.

Bit of background on fibre: The technology for fibre is based on sending data by using different wavelengths of light across an optic cable at speeds approaching (you guessed it) the speed of light.  The cable itself though is useless without equipment on either end to transmit and convert data into different wavelengths of light and back again.  This is analagous to making a phone call.  Your voice has to be converted into a format that can be transmitted over a wire and then back again so the recipient can hear you.

The technique used in fibre is called Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM).  WDM is a fibreoptic transmission technique that allows the use of multiple light wavelengths (or colours) to send data over the same line of fibre.  With that several signals can be sent along the fibre at the one time, dramatically increasing the bandwidth capacity of the connection.

The real improvement though is through the use of DWDM, which stands Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing.  Through the use of DWDM, wavelengths can be more closely spaced, meaning even more signals can be sent along that same fibre.  This in combination with other innovations is what has allowed us the ability to deliver the fastest internet connections in Australia at much lower prices.

Enabling Business-to-Business Collaboration

With our aim being to provide high speed and reliable data communication to businesses, we also thought about how we could assist regional growth.  We realised that we could help local businesses collaborate, not only by providing a better grade of fast internet service, but also by changing the way that data is shared between businesses. 

A majority of communication is business to business (B2B).  To enable closer working relationships, our new service offering provides private networks between other businesses on the same network at no additional charge.  This enables the sharing of data securely between multiple different premises without needing to communicate over the open internet.

Not only does this mean that the information is sent privately, but also it doesn’t require as many “hops” to get to its destination, thus reducing latency.  The private network can be utilised to securely send large design documents, marketing collateral, or enable businesses to build common platforms with their partners.  Usually this sort of service would require dedicated point-to-point solutions and cost thousands of dollars per month, and that’s on top of regular internet connection costs!

We believe that this service will help local businesses collaborate more, without needing to worry about the technical aspects required to make it happen.

Stage 1 – The start of the network & working with local businesses

The aim of Stage 1 of this project will be to enable all businesses located on the south side of Canterbury Rd, between Liverpool and Colchester roads, to access and be part of this Micron21 BBP Connect fibre network.

This new backbone network (built under the telecommunication act of 1997 by local licensed carrier Micron21) will be a major project, so we understand the importance of minimising disruption as much as possible.

With that in mind, the entire construction team will be provided and consist of local businesses that fully understand the importance of this project to their local community, as well as the importance of minimizing disruption for fellow local businesses as far as possible.

For example, the following local businesses have been engaged for their expertise in this project, and to ensure we continue to contribute to the local economy and drive jobs for the area:

• Cogar Construction Company - based in Kilsyth will provide bi-directional drilling, construction and traffic management services
• ABP Plumbing - based in Lilydale (licensed plumber) will oversee the installation of all conduct and duct work
• Anderson Corp - based in Bayswater will provide fibre termination equipment

We’ve also partnered with Prysmian Australia to provide the physical cable which will interconnect all businesses. Prysmian are responsible for supplying the same fibre cables that are the backbone of the NBN.

We’ll be posting regular updates about the Micron21 BBP Fibre Connect roll-out on our Blog, so be sure to subscribe if you would like to follow along with our progress.

Interested in getting your business connected to the Bayswater Business Precinct Fibre Connect?

If you are within the Bayswater Business Precinct and would like to enquire about becoming part of the Micron21 BBP Fibre Connect, give us a call on 1300 769 972 (Option #1) or email us at sales@micron21.com.

Alternatively, if you are not within the Bayswater Business Precinct region but would still like to talk to us about Micron21 providing internet services for your business, feel free to contact us via the same contact information above and we’ll be more than happy to discuss and help tailor a solution for your unique requirements.