From the desk of the CEO

I recently returned from five weeks away from the office with fresh eyes and that level of objectivity you experience after an extended break.

During this break I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion panel while attending the Carrier Ethernet World Conference 2007 in Geneva. Carriers around the world are experiencing massive growth in their Ethernet solutions; Colt in the US reported that in 2007, Ethernet service connections now exceed legacy services. After listening and networking with global carriers, I can tell you that in Australia, and at Uecomm, we are ahead of the game.

At the conference, I was able to provide with examples of what we are seeing here in Australia in our network and our customers’ networks, like Port of Brisbane Corporation and Eastern Health who are featured in this edition of Wavelength.

In July Uecomm partnered with MIS magazine and Fairfax Business Research to conduct the second annual telecommunication priorities research survey of Australian CIOs.

Published in September, the survey findings indicate one third of CIOs believe the loss of data telecommunication services would bring their business to a standstill.

This increasing importance of data to business continuity suggests an exciting time ahead for Uecomm as we strive to exceed our clients growing expectations with a high speed network that is capable of supporting the demands of mission critical and time sensitive information.

As one part of our commitment to delivering the best business customer experience, Uecomm has appointed Ian Noble as Director of Operations and Technology. Ian is responsible for ensuring our technology, direction and strategy is aligned to deliver upon our customer charter and value proposition.

Ian has worked in the telecommunications industry for over 20 years, with extensive experience at a senior level across operations and technology and his experience and knowledge will ensure that our next generation network meets existing and future customer requirements.

Dean Tognella
CEO, Uecomm

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Customer Profile: Port of Brisbane Corporation

Background
The Port of Brisbane Corporation oversees Queensland largest general cargo port, generating more than $770 million in annual contributions to the state’s economy. 

As more and more businesses establish in the port precinct, the demand for Internet services grows and a key area of development for the corporation is to ensure that the communications requirements of their customers are met, with the ability to upgrade capacity when required.

Process
Uecomm provisioned a broadband solution through both fibre optic cabling and high-speed point-to-point secure wireless connectivity. PortNet, a value-added service Port of Brisbane offers its tenants, runs over a fibre backbone spanning the Brisbane port precinct. This link is directly connected through Uecomm to the main east coast Internet trunk.

PortNet provides tenants with a sophisticated, end-to-end Internet solution. It uses a point-to-multipoint fixed wireless configuration, to provide high-speed Internet access to subscribers within a 20km radius of PortNet's points of presence (PoPs). 

Distributing its broadband solution through both fibre optic cabling and high-speed point-to-point secure wireless connectivity, PortNet can connect customers to other branch offices around Australia through a secure virtual private network (VPN).

Results
The Corporation has exclusive use of the fibre cable connecting the port. The scalability of the Uecomm fibre network allowed the Corporation to upgrade capacity from 60 Mbps to 250 Mbps 12 months ago, as a result of the increasing number of customers using the PortNet service.  

According to Port of Brisbane Corporation Manager Information Technology Tony Marles, the ability to provide data and voice services that can scale to meet the future needs of the Port of Brisbane is essential. 

“Telecommunications really is the lifeblood of this business, due to the geographical diversity of the port, and the varying needs of our customers. Because we have exclusive use of the fibre cable connecting the port, we can offer our customers a service that can meet their needs at up to two-thirds the cost of other providers.

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Customer Profile: Eastern Health

Background
Eastern Health was formed in July 2000 and is the second largest of Victoria’s 18 public health service providers. It delivers inpatient services to over 100,000 patients annually in the Yarra Ranges, eastern and outer eastern regions of metropolitan Melbourne.

Eastern Health needed a reliable network to support the exchange of information between disparate networks, including hospitals within the group and its data recovery centers.

Process
Uecomm provisioned dark fibre to link Eastern Health’s three metropolitan based hospitals, Angliss, Box Hill and Maroondah, and two metropolitan based data centers.

Eastern Health has a 1Gbps pipe into its main campus, Box Hill Hospital, and smaller links into other three sites including the Peter James Centre.

Satellite campuses in Healesville and the Yarra Valley Community Health Service are connected to the Uecomm network via external links.

Given the importance of disaster recovery and business continuity planning to health organisations, the Uecomm network has been implemented in a ring topology to ensure network redundancy. If a link is damaged, any data travelling down the link is automatically re-directed to its destination.  

Results
As part of a commitment to knowledge sharing and collaboration amongst hospitals in its network, Eastern Health relies on the resilience of Uecomm’s dark fibre to support video conferencing, voice over IP (VoIP) and file sharing.

According to Eastern Health’s Chief Technology Officer, Mark Gardiner, the Uecomm network is a reliable foundation for the information and communications technology that is critical to the group’s operations.

“Eastern Health has a distributed and geographically challenged model, because we have campuses stretching from Hawthorn to Warburton. Having the ability to communicate at an enterprise level, horizontally rather than in silos, is vital to knowledge sharing and patient care.

“Uecomm provides the conduit for Eastern Health to communicate between the various campuses at a data level suitable for email and office documents, and also via VoIP / Multi Media and videoconferencing. The reliability of the network has been perfect. Staff wouldn’t know that when they call between Box Hill and Maroondah, they’re using VoIP – that demonstrates the quality of service.

Large image files, such as CAT scans and MRIs from the imaging and radiology departments, also travel the network between localised campuses, and are sent to Eastern Health’s back end storage facilities.  Although these files are usually compressed, at times they can reach up to 8Gb in size.

“Uecomm provides a customer portal that allows us to monitor the traffic on any link, and we have the flexibility to manage bandwidth in accordance with fluctuations in traffic. This is advantageous because you can’t manage something you can’t measure. Monitoring how the links are being used is critical to providing capacity planning for Eastern Health,” said Mr Gardiner.

Brendan Park, Uecomm’s Director of Strategy explained that Eastern Health is part of a larger hospital alliance called Shared Services that leverages next generation networks to increase communications and collaboration between disparate campuses.

“Shared Services is an independent entity representing Eastern Health, Southern Health, Bayside Health, Peter McCallum Cancer Research Institute and the Royal Eye and Ear Hospital. These organisations realise that connecting hospital infrastructures over a high-speed, Ethernet network, provides the reliability to transfer critical data and leverage VoIP and video applications for knowledge sharing.

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Insight: MIS Research

Data services now considered as critical for business continuity as voice

Uecomm partnered with MIS magazine and Fairfax Business Research in May to conduct the second annual telecommunication priorities research survey of Australian CIOs.

The survey findings indicate one third of CIOs believe the loss of data telecommunication services would bring their business to a standstill.

And while voice telephony remains critical for 36 per cent of businesses, this figure has not changed over the past 12 months. 

By contrast, the criticality of data communications has increased by 10 per cent since the 2006 survey, suggesting that for the first time, data is of equal importance to voice communications for one third of CIOs.

According to Uecomm’s director of strategy, Brendan Park, the increasing importance of data to business continuity highlights the need for high-speed networks that are capable of supporting the demands of mission critical and time sensitive information.

“Core business applications are driving the reliance on real-time network availability. The shift to unified communications and VoIP is becoming important as organisations rely on IP-based networks for business operations. This reliance is placing an unprecedented demand on existing communication systems to meet business priorities, and provide the reliability and scalability required.

Significantly, the survey found that system replacement, upgrade or migration of the network was a key priority for 69 per cent of CIOs in the coming year. Planning for current and future needs were also an issue for 33 per cent and managing budget limitations was the third biggest priority for 29 per cent of CIOs.*

Whilst cost reduction is seen as a key responsibility for all CIOs, the findings indicate the intention to invest in network capability over the next 12 months outweigh budget concerns.

According to Mr Park organisations are recognising future proofing as an important part of their network management.

“Businesses are accountable to shareholders and customers to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, and the reality is, demand for increased network capability over the past decade has grown considerably.  Businesses require future proof networks that provide far greater capacity for a similar investment.

“By reviewing or replacing their legacy networks with more efficient technology, organisations ensure they can meet future needs and reduce costs over time,” he said. 

* This market research study was conducted by Fairfax Business Research, MIS Australia and commissioned by Uecomm.  Over 110 Australian Chief Information Officers (CIOs) were surveyed nationally from a minimum enterprise size of 200 employees

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