Local News: Businesses in Southbank

With the rollout of the National Broadband Network (NBN) gaining momentum everyday, Harbour ISP founding director Charles Tym said it was exciting to be at the forefront of the high-speed revolution.

“For me personally I think the NBN is the most exciting project that I’ve been involved in,” he said.

“It’s great technology and everywhere you go people are just happy to have the extra speed, the extra data, the extra downloads and the extra telepathy features that you can get over the NBN.”

Having been the first company to participate in the NBN trials back in 2012, Harbour ISP’s network today covers the whole of Australia and is one of the largest NBN partners by customer numbers.

The company had previously worked under the old ADSL network for several years, which according to Charles, was facing critical problems with speed and capacity before the introduction of the NBN.

With the preexisting infrastructure now replaced and the rollout constantly gaining momentum, Charles said it wouldn’t be long until every inner-city apartment building could experience higher speeds via fibre-to-the-basement.

“There are some parts of inner-city Melbourne that have been connected and there are other parts where there is none yet and to say the least it has been very limited or spotty because we’re at the beginning of the rollout,” he said.

“Over the next couple of years you’ll see very much a quickened pace of the NBN rollout in areas such as Southbank, Docklands and the CBD and that’s going to be a huge game changer.”

For the areas of Southbank and metropolitan Melbourne that are already able to experience the NBN, Harbour ISP continues to play a leading role in helping to bring local residents up to speed.

With much ambiguity still surrounding the NBN and its rollout, Harbour ISP’s National Development Manager Jane Kinsey said the company had played a crucial part in providing education and support for the community.

“Not many people are sort of across how it works, what to do and what to expect so that’s where we’ve not only been able to provide a service but also an educational side to it as well,” she said.

“We’ve been able to become sort of a conduit between NBN and the developer or building manager. We’re able to liaise with NBN and come up with a resolution for our customers and that’s happened so many times.”

Jane said she and her team enjoyed working directly with local residents to provide a fully comprehensive service, in what she described as a “nice, neat little package.”

“Yeah it’s fantastic, it’s a lot of fun,” she said. “I really enjoy going out and meeting my customers,” she said.

“If we say we’re going to be there at 12 o’clock we will be there at 12 o’clock, come in set up your Wi-Fi, set up your smart TV and just have everything done for you and you don’t have to take a day off work.”

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