Vocus Customer Story: Water Corporation

A new broadband solution for a vast water utility across 95 sites – some extremely remote

Vocus helped Water Corporation to move away from inflexible legacy infrastructure to high speed fibre broadband at 95 corporate user sites, improving the team’s access to information.

The ripple effect: a growing relationship based on trust

Since Vocus first provided services to Water Corporation in 2016, its responsive performance led the water utility to progressively shift more services to Vocus.

High bandwidth connectivity for vital water infrastructure

Water Corporation is the main supplier of water, wastewater and drainage services to over two million people throughout Perth and WA – vital services provided across a vast geographic area including some very rugged remote locations. The water utility required better connectivity across all its locations – even its most remote sites.

Staff working at remote sites risked frustrating connectivity problems due to ageing copper-based network links (a mix of frame relay, DSL-based technologies and ISDN) limited to 10Mbps. Water Corporation looked to Vocus to modernise its network links and provide consistent high bandwidth connectivity across all its remote locations.

Replumbing the network

Water Corporation sought a long-term telco partner focused on providing a wide array of connectivity options. It particularly wanted a new network solution supplier that was fast, flexible and could provide high-speed services in remote and regional areas. It was also looking for ease of commercial, contract and legal solutions.

Water Corporation mapped out its requirements, which included connecting 95 sites across a broad geographic area and then looked to Vocus for recommendations. The team found solutions to all the requirements and committed to delivery timelines that met Water Corporation needs.

The result: consistent broadband everywhere

Through the project, Vocus enabled Water Corporation to keep all its sites connected without interruption despite its previous provider withdrawing its legacy services from market.

Vocus installed new infrastructure at challenging remote sites in plenty of time to ensure service continuity. For example, Vocus Satellite – Starlink was fully deployed from initial order to cyclone-proofed site installation within six weeks at a Water Corporation dam in the Pilbara. This provided a significant upgrade in bandwidth and service continuity over the previous satellite technology as well as ensuring uninterrupted connectivity.

The outcome for Water Corporation’s staff is that they can now work from any of the utility’s locations – even the most remote sites in windswept locations – with fast, metro-grade connectivity back to the corporate network.

The project was delivered on time and on budget by Vocus.