Header image: The nbn™ Business Operations Centre in pre-COVID-19 times.

4-minute read

Despite COVID-19 and its effects, the business nbn™ Operations Centre is still open for business to connect and offer 24/7 support to Australian businesses connected to business nbn™ solutions.

Perhaps never more than now have the words ‘unprecedented’ and ‘uncertainty’ been used so frequently to describe the times.

Yet, that’s where we all find ourselves: in times of unprecedented change and facing the uncertainty brought about by the global COVID-19 pandemic.

And among those trying to find their way through unfamiliar challenges and towards a ‘new normal’ is Australia’s business community.

It’s a community we know well here at nbn, having recently reached the milestone of one million business customers connected to services over our network.

It’s a community whose surviving and thriving is vital to the livelihoods of Australians – as employers, customers and suppliers.

And it’s a community, I’m proud to say, that we’re still here to support – 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – through our dedicated business nbn™ Operations Centre.

Non-stop support for Australia’s businesses

Ordinarily, the business nbn™ Operations Centre and its 200-strong support team runs from our dedicated, state-of-the-art facilities in Melbourne’s Docklands.

But, as we all know, these aren’t ordinary times.

So, to ensure the business nbn™ Operations Centre could continue to provide uninterrupted support to Australian businesses connected to business nbn™ solutions when they need it most, we sent everyone home.

Home to work, that is.  

Transitioning the team as quickly as possible to this new way of working was vital.

Not least because demand for services over the nbn™ network and for support have increased dramatically since COVID-19.

It was also to look after the best interests of our employees, while continuing – without interruption – to support the lifeblood of Australia’s economy: the small through to big businesses.

Ready, willing and able to help

Operating 100 per cent remotely from our employees’ homes, right now – and as always, the business nbn™ Operations Centre is ready, willing and able to help reach new levels of support for our customers.

Building on our experience of working with essential services we’re taking things to another level by helping to ensure a stable service for essential service sites. We’re doing this through 24/7 proactive monitoring to help reduce interruptions or downtime.

These are sites like hospitals, supermarkets and schools, helping ensure they stay online to meet the essential needs of the community when they are needed.

With almost 14,000 essential service sites on the nbn™ network and counting, the team has been proactively monitoring the nbn™ connection and flagging any possible faults or incidents with our internet service providers to help ensure they are resolved as soon as possible – potentially even before an impact is noticed by the customer.

We’ve enacted this proactive initiative while supporting the ‘right first time’ connection experience for Australian businesses, as we continue to be a point of contact for internet service providers with customers choosing business nbn™ solutions.

This is only the beginning, and some of the other ways we help include support service options such as:

• business connection and assurance support from our dedicated, Australian-based team
• enhanced service levels between nbn and service providers to assist with a business-grade level of support
• a range of fault resolution timeframes thanks to our national coverage
• best practice methodology across all operational processes
• physical tagging to better identify copper pairs and support ‘right first time’ connections
• premium appointment times to help reduce business disruptions
• parallel installations to help minimise the risk of business disruption
• business-grade field technicians for complex connection and assurance site visits
• enterprise service delivery management to help map out and deliver a well-coordinated migration plan

We’ve also worked hard during this unusual period to bring forward some initiatives to help businesses stay online with as few interruptions as possible by lowering the number of planned outages to help lessen impacts to business and moving maintenance activities to after hours.

Certainty in uncertain times

While we can’t tell you what’s around the corner, or when we’ll all return to more familiar times, we can be certain of this: nbn is here for you and your business.

Playing such an important role in communities right across the nation, we’re proud that we can do our bit to help keep Australia’s businesses running.