As members of the one of the oldest continual cultures in the world, Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council (LALC) is tasked with bringing tens of thousands of years’ worth of knowledge, tradition and custodianship into the modern age.

To help better manage the land under its care, and share the council’s cultural voice with visitors from all over the world, Worimi LALC recently enlisted the help of phone and internet provider, TasmaNet.

The aim was to upgrade Worimi LALC’s network to support a grand vision for the future.

“Our vision is to help all Australians to understand that aboriginal culture is not just in the past. It’s past, present and it is future,” says Andrew Smith, CEO at Worimi LALC.

“Through the advancement of technologies and digital mediums here at the Murrook cultural centre, we’ve actually gone from songlines to cyberlines, in helping people better understand our shared history.”

A service to meet the needs of many

Worimi LALC owns and manages the Worimi Conservation Lands, a 4200-hectare park located in New South Wales between Newcastle and Port Stephens.

The park is home to a large network of sand dunes and is a popular tourist attraction for up to 45,000 visitors each year.

Waiting to welcome visitors to the area is former amusement park, Murrook.

Today, the facility is a multi-purpose cultural centre that’s home to Worimi LALC’s offices, as well as serving as a hub for cultural visits, conferences, school excursions and more.

Housing a large kitchen and restaurant dining area, administration offices, an expansive conference hall and 4.5ha of land – including beautiful gardens and waterways – the facility truly puts the ‘multi’ in multi-purpose.

Guests can participate in activities including: cultural tourism through Worimi’s Sand Dune Adventures; cultural heritage education; catered conferences; and events.

And thanks to the diversity of activities on offer, the park attracts a wide range of guests with different connectivity requirements.

From conference guests needing to access emails while onsite through to wedding guests wanting Wi-Fi to share images from a ceremony, Worimi LALC knew it would need an adaptable network that could meet the growing needs and expectations of guests today, while also being capable of scaling up to meet its vision for the future.

“At Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council, our primary goal is to protect, promote and foster the best interests of our Aboriginal community.

“We do that by improving opportunities for them to engage on better social and commercial platforms,” says Andrew.

Future ready connectivity

An important part of Worimi’s purpose is to share and protect the customs, knowledge and stories of the Traditional Custodians of the area.

In pursuit of that goal, the organisation’s leadership developed an ambitious plan for the future of Murrook.

The vision included building a modern, interactive visitor experience to help guests engage more with Aboriginal culture, and learn about their shared history through immersive multimedia experiences.

“Aboriginal culture is about relationships and all things are connected. We want to create new relationships, a new identity, and new opportunities for Aboriginal people and all Australians who want to connect with and understand our shared history,” says Andrew.

“Taking our culture and turning it into a digital medium actually helps us connect better to our audiences. In today’s modern technology environment, it’s the way we can better express our cultural voice in that space.”

Searching for the right solution

With big plans for the future, and signs that their existing ADSL2 internet connectivity wasn’t adequate to support its current (and rapidly growing) needs, it became clear to Worimi LALC that it would need to look for a more suitable network solution.

So, the team reached out to local telecommunications specialist, Excel IT, for advice.

“From our very first conversation, the Worimi team have been emphatic about building a modern, interactive exhibition space that would enable them to share their culture more broadly with visitors,” says Craig Catlow, Owner of Excel IT.

“Their vision was for a highly-connected space and it was pretty clear that an upgrade to their network solution was going to be needed to help them bring their vision to life,” says Craig.

After assessing Worimi LALC’s current and future needs, Excel IT recommended engaging phone and internet provider, TasmaNet, to connect to a business nbn™ Enterprise Ethernet solution.

business nbn™ Enterprise Ethernet is designed to provide businesses with access to the fastest symmetrical wholesale speeds available on the nbn™ network, on a premium fibre-based service.

Enterprise Ethernet also offers service providers options to prioritise data in the future, meaning Worimi could access the right speeds for their current needs today, while being prepared to quickly adapt and scale to a higher-speed plan based on wholesale committed information rates – if their growth and network activity demand it.

“The Enterprise Ethernet solution is scalable, enabling Worimi Local Aboriginal Land Council to use the full range of network speeds and features as they grow their digital capabilities, and as they build their interactive exhibition space in the near future,” says David Ball, TasmaNet Sales Team.

Connecting people

Since connecting to their chosen premium business grade fibre nbn™ solution, Worimi LALC has found that the solution’s speeds and network’s reliability have helped enable operations to run more smoothly, with better employee and visitor experiences, and higher productivity for staff.

At the office, Worimi LALC employees used to joke about taking a coffee break while their systems were loading.

The new solution powered by business nbn™ Enterprise Ethernet wholesale plans has helped TasmaNet deliver a service that has reduced the time it takes for these systems to load.

Now, team members are finding they have more hours back in their day and – with the increased productivity – can take on more high priority tasks.

“We can now move ahead with our plans for the new interactive centre with confidence, knowing that our chosen business nbn™ Enterprise Ethernet plan will be able to handle the demands that the centre is likely to place on our network,” says Andrew.

“We can’t wait to build a new experience that engages with visitors and helps them to see and feel more about Aboriginal stories, experiences and our culture.”