Connecting to the NBN
The entire process from signing up to installation of the NBN took about four weeks, said Dare.
The business experienced an unexpected complication trying to sign up: Telstra told the company it didn’t sell any NBN services for businesses, said Dare. Dare took to the phonebook and found iiNet, which was happy to connect the business.
Connecting the aerial cables to the office also presented more of a hassle than expected, Dare said.
When NBN Co workers came out to evaluate the job, they said it looked easy as it was just a matter of running a cable across the street, Dare said.
However, it turned out cherry pickers had to be brought in, and Dare had to provide workers to stop traffic during the installation. The job itself only took around 10 minutes, however.
Using the NBN
Dare said the NBN has greatly improved the quality of Skype video calls and Google Maps, two Internet-based tools used extensively by the Tasmanian electrical contractors.
The business uses Skype to talk to farmers and suppliers, he said. Before the NBN, Skype was slow to load and frequently dropped out, he said. “It was not practical at all,” he said.
The service has much improved since turning on the NBN, Dare said. Skype remains a problem if the other end is not connected to fibre, “but certainly on our end it’s fantastic.”
Dare Electrical relies on Google Maps to remotely assess land for new installations around the countryside.
“Prior to getting the NBN on, it was bloody painful to download these maps,” he said. “With the NBN, it just loads very fast and just saves so much time. And it’s stable as well.”
“The difference in speed of loading, speed of data manipulation—it would be really, really difficult to go back to the old system.”
Dare said the network could be a major cost saver for support.
“For us to send a fellow out to a farm, and maybe all it’s to do is reset a microswitch or to reset a circuit breaker, can cost at least $100 and probably more.”
“If we can see that alarm on our machine in our office, we can call the farm up and say, ‘Look, go out there and reset that circuit breaker.”
He added that he’s excited about new things that the NBN may enable for his business in the future.
“I think we’ve only started. Many other opportunities are going to come up. I’m sure of that.”
NBN politics
Dare said he’s not concerned with fighting between the Labor and Liberal parties over the future direction of the NBN.
“Politics is politics, and there’s a lot of games to be played there,” he said. “If the Liberals get in, they might use different tools, but I think the outcome is going to be very similar.”
Some businesses need the highest speeds provided by the Labor’s fibre-to-the-premises plan, he said, “but a lot of businesses don’t.”
Dare added that he does not see fibre ever completely replacing copper.
“We are probably 100 metres back from the road and so all of the power and all the communications are underground,” he said. “There is no way in Hell anybody’s going to tear up all that land and dig out the copper and put a bloody fibre optic in. They’re not going to do it, and I’m not going to let them put poles in.”
A national broadband network is critical to the growth of regional Australia, however, Dare said.
“Cities are getting far too large. With the NBN, it gives people the opportunity to work in rural and remote areas.”
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