Rural Businesses Boom with Broadband
10th March 2005
Tailem Bend and Meningie are among the first places in Australia to receive super-fast ADSL2 broadband services from Internet age telco Agile Communications - which is now examining the viability of extending its broadband to Bordertown.
Emphasising its commitment to regional investment, Agile turned on its breakthrough 12 Mbps (megabits per second) broadband in the two rural towns at the same time as services in Adelaide and Melbourne went live. Agile’s first customer in Tailem Bend - connected through its local partner Bridge Online - was Mrs. Betty Smedley who uses broadband to audit the accounts at three of her son Phil’s five Bridgestone Tyre Centres.
Mrs. Smedley said broadband had meant that she could get rid of her phone/fax. “I can do auditing with broadband easily whereas before it cost too much with dialup,” she said.
“I’ve talked my other son Darren into getting broadband by explaining how it worked. Darren has connected up his business, Smedley Tyre Service in Tailem Bend, so his wife can access the computer from home while looking after the children in holidays.”
Phil Smedley, who owns Bridgestone Tyre businesses at Victor Harbor, Reynella and Mt Barker and Bordertown, said he is keen for broadband to arrive in Bordertown so he can connect his two other stores. “We need it for our office work to be online with all of our stores,” he said. “With our stores at Victor, Reynella and Mt Barker, everything is online, so we can check their data, their sales, change the pricing and run the computer without interrupting staff in that store.”
In a national first, Australia this month took a giant leap towards catching the US with Agile’s launch of this country’s first ADSL2 broadband services - delivering peak speeds faster than Telstra’s cable service. The first people to benefit from this service are customers in Adelaide, Melbourne, Tailem Bend and Meningie.
Australia’s fastest broadband service to date ran at 1.5 megabits per second (Mbps), using ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) which provides Internet access over a standard phone line without tying up the line. Since March 1, Agile has provided ADSL2 broadband services that run as fast as 12Mbps - eight times faster than current broadband.
As the first company to provide ADSL2, Agile beat industry giant Telstra to this breakthrough.
Mr. Smedley is an established innovator in applying technology to his business. In 2002, his company won the national Ericsson Innovation Award for small to medium-sized businesses for its use of remote access technology with the Cadzow Accounting Software.
Mr. Smedley said broadband had simplified managing businesses spread over a wide area. “Jobs that used to take an hour can now take a couple of minutes,” he said. “For example, when we received a payment at head office, we had to create a list of payments for each store, fax it off to them, they had to produce a receipt on their computer and fax it back."
“Now a payment comes to head office, is entered once and every store can see it. At Bordertown we still use that old process. As soon as we can get broadband on, we get all those benefits. Our goal is to take away administrative tasks from our managers. if they’re doing paperwork, they can’t be making money. It’s a sensible way of doing business.”
Agile Communications CEO Simon Hackett said he would be happy to put broadband in Bordertown if there was sufficient demand. “We run a Demand Register where potential customers can register their interest in broadband,” he said. “I encourage anyone in Bordertown who wants broadband to log their interest at www.agile.com.au/demand because Agile has a more efficient underlying cost structure than Telstra, so it could happen much sooner.”
