Bunbury Telco Solutions was engaged by Bunbury Lotteries House Inc. (BLHI) to investigate a failed NBN fibre installation for one tenant and, in doing so, developed a solution that opened up fibre access across two heritage listed buildings in the Bunbury CBD.
BLHI provides affordable office accommodation to not for profit organisations delivering important services within the Bunbury community. Reliable internet connectivity is essential to this work, yet the heritage nature of the buildings had historically made installing new telecommunications infrastructure difficult. In some cases, tenants had resorted to relying on mobile data because getting a fixed NBN connection into their tenancy was simply too challenging.
A key outcome of this project was turning a single tenant's failed fibre upgrade into a long term infrastructure solution that ultimately benefited every not for profit organisation operating from the buildings.
Following NBN fibre upgrades throughout the Bunbury CBD, one of the tenants, Jobs South West (JSW), was advised by its telecommunications provider, that it was eligible for a free NBN fibre upgrade.
On paper, that advice was correct. A standard NBN service qualification showed that the address was eligible. However, when the installation was attempted, NBN was unable to complete the fibre upgrade into the tenancy.
This highlighted the difference between knowing what is available at an address and understanding what is actually required to deliver it. For a provider servicing customers remotely through a call centre, the information available through an NBN qualification check can only tell part of the story. BTS already knew the other part.
As a Bunbury-based telecommunications provider, BTS was familiar with Bunbury Lotteries House, its heritage-listed buildings and some of the challenges tenants had previously experienced obtaining fixed telecommunications services.
When BLHI contacted BTS and asked us to investigate why the fibre installation could not proceed, our team attended site and assessed the problem firsthand.
Rather than looking at the issue as a problem for one individual tenant, BTS worked with BLHI to develop a solution that would benefit all of the not-for-profit organisations operating from the buildings.
Following consultation with BLHI, BTS designed a new telecommunications pathway that would allow NBN fibre infrastructure to be delivered throughout the heritage-listed buildings.
The solution needed to provide practical access for telecommunications infrastructure while respecting the requirements associated with the buildings' heritage status.
BTS then installed the required cabled pathways to the appropriate heritage standards, creating an accessible route for fibre services to reach the individual tenancies.
Instead of repeatedly trying to solve the same problem each time another tenant requested an upgrade, BLHI now had infrastructure designed to make future NBN fibre installations significantly easier.
What started as a request to investigate one tenant's failed fibre upgrade ultimately provided a solution for the wider Bunbury Lotteries House community.
With the new pathways in place, tenants who had previously experienced difficulty obtaining fixed NBN services could now take advantage of the fibre upgrades available within the Bunbury CBD.
Following the project, majority of tenants within Bunbury Lotteries House chose to move their telecommunications services to BTS. Importantly, they were able to receive their telecommunications services at a comparable price, while gaining access to a local Bunbury team that understood their buildings and could attend site when required.
An online service qualification can tell you whether NBN fibre is available at an address. It cannot tell you everything about a heritage-listed building, the existing pathways, the individual tenancies or the practical challenges of getting fibre from the street to where it actually needs to go.
That is where local knowledge matters.
For Bunbury Lotteries House, BTS combined telecommunications expertise, local knowledge and an understanding of the building to turn a failed fibre upgrade into a long-term solution benefiting multiple community organisations.
Sometimes better telecommunications is not about what is available at an address. It is about having someone local who knows how to make it work.
Photo Credit: Volunteer South West (https://volunteersouthwest.org.au/contact/)
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