March 2, 2023 • 24 mins
Low-earth orbit (LEO) satellite technology is changing the game for secure, high-speed connectivity in regional and remote Australia, particularly for industries involved with either high risk or high value operations. Join us as we talk to two leading LEO satellite experts, Ashley Neale and Cal Mayhook, to discuss the incredible benefits this technology is bringing to emergency services, the resources sector, opportunities in education, connectivity to remote communities, and much more.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Vocus Inspire, the podcast full of brilliant ideas
for business.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, I'm Luke Coleman, head of government and corporate affairs
at Vocus, Australia's leading specialist fibre and network solutions provider.
Before we get things underway, we want to acknowledge and
pay our respects to the traditional custodians of the land
from wherever you're listening. In this podcast, we dive headfirst
into what's on the minds of Australian business and government
(00:30):
leaders to help inspire you and your organisation to go forward,
go further and go faster. So let's go.
Welcome to the Vocus Inspire podcast. One thing we love
talking about is Leo satellite technology, and we've got a
very special episode where we've got not one but 2
(00:53):
Leo satellite experts joining us. First, we've got Ashley Neil.
Ashley is development manager for Vocus's Space and satellite.
Business Ashley's been working in this space for 15 years
and has become one of the country's leading experts. Ashley
works closely with global satellite operators to support their growth
in the Asia Pacific region and bring amazing solutions to
(01:15):
market for Australian customers. Ashley, thank you for being with
us today. Thanks, Luke. Good to be here.
Second of all, we've got Cal Mayhook. He's the product
manager for Vocus's Leo Satellite Solutions. Cal's responsible for the
end to end product design and customer experience of Vocus's
Leo satellite solutions, including our new Vocus satellite Starlink solution. Cal,
(01:39):
great to have you with us. Thanks for having me, Luke.
Now I might kick off with a uh a question
to uh to both of you, so Ashley maybe you
might want to jump in first, just to set the
scene for any listeners that might not be across what
Leo is. What is it that makes Leo satellite services
different to,
Other remote connectivity options. Thanks, Luke. I think the, um,
(02:02):
standout attributes of a low Earth orbit satellite service is
low latency. So people have had satellite connectivity in regional
parts of the country for a very long time around
the world, even. You know, the common complaint is combined
with speed, you know, combined with price is low latency. They, that's,
that's the time taken for a packet to go from
(02:22):
wherever that user is.
Um, to its destination. And, and over geostationary, that can
be 650 milliseconds up to a second. And with low latency,
it's typically under 100 milliseconds. So it's a really great
experience and really not too dissimilar from the type of
experience getting connected from your mobile phone anywhere in metropolitan Australia.
(02:43):
And what industries are going to benefit most from LEO's
satellites and why? Look,
Any industry that's, it's operating a, a high risk or
high value operation. And so, you know, high risk typically
refers to when people are involved. And so if you're
in emergency services, if you're in defence, if you're in mining,
and you, and you know that the well-being and the
(03:04):
welfare of people who are involved, then SATCOMs, good quality
SATCOMs is gonna be part of your, uh, communication plan.
But also, it's high value assets, right? So if you've
got a mining operation in regional parts of the country,
And you want to get the most efficiency out of
that operation, it needs to be connected. And, and the
way miners have been using SATCOMs for a long time
(03:25):
is doing real-time analysis of the efficiency on that mine. Now,
you can do that better and to a higher quality
if you've got low latency and very high throughput. Couple
of questions about the product, so I'm gonna throw over
to Cal for a minute. Cal, just tell us, what
is the Vocus satellite Starling product? Yeah, thanks, Luke. So,
You know, at, at Vocus, we, we provide internet to
(03:47):
thousands of customers. And, and what we've learned from providing
that internet is what customers really value is the Vocus
service experience they get when they buy an internet product
from Vocus. And so our thesis with the Vocus satellite
Starlink product is that we take that same service experience
that we apply to our own, uh, fibre internet, and
we apply that to Starlink's satellite internet product.
(04:10):
So what that means on the ground is that the
customers can expect the same experience they get from fibre
as they will get from a satellite product. And what
we can do is we, we provide expert solution consultants
to help our customers design their solution. We provide a
premium connection experience so we can connect customers faster than
we do than Starlink with options for professional installation or
(04:33):
options for supporting our customers to do their own installation.
We provide a premium support experience through our 24/7 local
NOC that will help to troubleshoot, triage, and, and resolve issues,
and we hold our own spares within Australia that we
can send out to customers to, to get them to
replace kits really quickly, much faster than you would get
(04:53):
with Starlink. Um, and really, so what we're looking to
achieve here is make a really simple experience where you
just buy,
Satellite internet, and it just works. And that's really what
Vocus is all about. You know, we're one of our
values is brilliant, made simple, and we're trying to apply
that to all our products and particularly with satellite internet, because,
you know, in the past, it's been hard to make
(05:14):
internet work with satellite. So this is what we're all about.
We're trying to make it simple, we're trying to make
it so that when you get it and you turn
it on, it just works. And then if for whatever
reason it doesn't work at some point, we have that
premium support, premium service experience to get your network back
up and running.
Now for a company like Vocus, most people would know
Vocus as a fibre infrastructure company. Vocus operates the 2nd
(05:38):
largest inter-capital fibre network in Australia, so why is it
important for a national fibre operator like Vocus to be
providing Starlink as part of its overall portfolio?
Yeah, great question, Luke. So, when you think about it,
satellite internet is really plugging the gaps where fibre can't reach,
as well as providing some, you know, um, redundancy options
(05:59):
and other benefits you can get from it. So,
The way we look at it is that Vocus is
experts are providing highly resilient, highly secure networks to our
customers all over Australia. But there are places where you
can't get fibre, but it's too expensive or you, you know,
customers don't want to pay to, to dig up the
ground and build all that fibre. So we see this
as an extension of the premium secure service experience that
(06:22):
we
Offer to our fibre customers, and we're expanding that footprint
across the whole of Australia, which we're really excited about. Now, I,
I could go on Starlink's website today with my credit
card and buy a Starlink dish and we're off to
the races. So, Cal, why would an organisation buy Starlink
satellite from Vocus rather than just buying it directly from Starlink?
(06:43):
Yeah, another good question, Luke. So, what selling does really
well is they've built a great internet product. Now, what
they don't prioritise, is kind of the way they look
at it, is they don't prioritise giving a customised premium
support experience. They're providing, um, internet to the masses, and
a lot of customers don't want mass internet. They want
(07:05):
a service experience that's tailored to them, and they want
To believe that when something goes wrong, they'll be able
to fix it and they want a, a premium telecommunications
company to manage that service for them. So that's why,
that's the, the role that we see focus fitting, and
you know, we're we're new at this, so it's a, um,
It's early in the, in the product days, and that's
(07:27):
what we're, that was our thesis going into building this product.
And so far we've seen great uptake, you know, it's,
whenever you're launching one of these things, it's like, Oh, that's,
we've got a pretty good idea that that's what our
customers want. But then it's nice to see, you know,
since we've launched the product, we've seen great uptake from
our customers, and we're seeing that customers really do value
that service experience across the board. So, yeah, it's been
(07:49):
really positive. You know, we're in a really unique position
because of the
The portfolio of brands that we sell through into our marketplace. We've,
so we've got our, you know, consumer products go through,
you know, predominantly dodos. And that's known as a well-priced product,
internet product out in the marketplace. And then we have
the more premium, even government defence grade internet products that
(08:12):
you can get through our Vocus business. So, we have
like an intimate understanding of
What customers need to experience for them to be prepared
to fork out a premium. And what we've seen is Starlink, um,
had some gaps in some of those offerings, and, and
we're able to fill those gaps, not by inventing some
new capability within our business, but porting some things that
(08:34):
we already do really well across to wrap around what
Starlink provides. And it's a, it's a really great sort
of synergistic relationship.
Now the Vocus satellite Starlink product is currently in beta.
What does that mean for customers? Yeah, so we have a,
we have a really good vision of what we think the.
The end-state service experience should be for our customers. A
(08:56):
lot of that is about making things really simple for customers.
As you know, whenever you make something simple, usually underneath
the surface, you're hiding lots of complexity and there's a
lot of work that goes into making something really simple
and easy to use. So, we're in the journey of,
of building that out. We have launched a product in,
and we're calling it in beta because we are still
(09:17):
learning and taking our learnings from
Our, our customers that we're working with every day, and
we're refining what that perfect service experience looks like. You know, we're,
we're working with a new vendor, we're working with Starlink.
They haven't really engaged with telcos like us before. And so,
but in terms of reseller side. So, you know, there's
learnings on both sides about how we can, um, provide the,
(09:40):
the experience that we want to for our customers. So really,
if customers get on board now, what we're finding with
customers is they're, they're very pleased and, you know, quite
It's almost like, welcome, like join the fold, we'll learn together.
And it's been really re like customers have been really
receptive to that. It's been really positive, um, learning together
with our customers, and we're definitely, you know, day by day,
we're continuing to improve that service experience upon what it
(10:03):
is already. So, yeah, that's, we're, we're growing towards leaving beta, and,
but we'll never be done. There'll always be something that's, well,
more learnings, there'll always be something that we can add
to the customer experience. Um, yeah.
A question maybe for Ashley this time, can you tell
us a bit about some of the customers who are
currently using Vocus satellite, Starlink, and the way that they're
(10:26):
using it?
We had a certain thesis on the type of demand
profile that we see from our customer base, and, uh,
and I think we got that pretty much right. So,
you know, we're seeing customers who want rapid deployment, uh,
we're seeing customers who need to get, uh, a low
latency service in place to prepare that site for fibre connectivity.
(10:46):
We're seeing it in disaster recovery. Um, we're seeing it
as backup to their fibre or 4G connection. Um, so
all of those use cases that we theorised about, um,
they're actually coming into play.
So, um, we're pretty happy about that. Um,
Yeah, I, I, I'll give you a great anecdote of,
of a service that, that we deployed just before Christmas,
as we were, as we were leading into Christmas. And
(11:07):
mind you, we'd only officially launched this product for maybe
a month. We had a frantic phone call from one
of our customers who's in an aged care practise. And, uh,
and I think it was the 22nd of December, and
a service they'd ordered, uh, from a national carrier wasn't
gonna be delivered in time.
And so, uh, it's the 22nd, and, and I think
(11:28):
the stats are something like, we received the phone call
at 11 o'clock on the 22nd, and by 1 o'clock
on the 23rd, they had a fully connected, high-speed, low
latency starling service, um, is supported by us. And like,
it's just such a great example, and it feels pretty
good because we know what, what no connectivity for that
facility would have felt like. Um, and we've got a
(11:49):
multitude of examples where we've helped mining customers.
Um, we've held a community in far north Queensland that was,
that was, um, flooded out and their, their connectivity went down,
and we deployed super quickly some Starlink services to support them.
We do all of that in a way that, you know,
our customers go, oh, like, it's a familiar way of buying,
(12:10):
it's a familiar process to get support. Yeah, that support
is underpinned by service levels and KPIs. So, it's, they
know what to expect when they purchase that, uh, product
off us. We're also seeing some really cool stuff happening, um,
naturally in the mining industry, um, some great stuff around government. Um,
it's what's really exciting around, um, around government, state government,
(12:31):
in particular is
What's possible around education. We're seeing some really good stories about,
about where Starlink is being deployed, testing the difference it's,
it's making to remote, uh, indigenous communities in changing the
learning outcomes. Uh, and, uh, we're gonna see a change
in learning outcomes for regional Australia that's not a generational change.
(12:53):
We'll see a change that'll happen in 18 months.
Now, we've been talking a lot about Starlink, but Starlink
isn't the only Leo provider in town. Ashley, can you
tell us a bit more about the other LEO satellite
providers and what's going to be brought to market in
the near future? Yeah, sure. So there's, there are some other,
you know, what we call mega constellations, constellations that are, um,
(13:17):
here to deliver broadband, which, you know, at face value
is in competition to Starlink.
Um, Starlink do have a first mover advantage. So, you know,
what they've done is they've set a, a baseline, they
set a standard for, you know, the price for a service,
type of performance experience, and really importantly, the service experience. So,
Uh, it's obvious that the competition, companies like OneWeb and
(13:38):
TeleSat and Amazon, they're, they're looking very carefully at what
Starlink is doing, and they're they're trying to find, uh,
a space where they can be different, and, you know,
I think,
Um, you know, further to what Cal's talking about around
offering a premier experience, um, you know, I think these
other providers are gonna lean more heavily into, you know,
(13:58):
the business, enterprise, government area. Like, what, what do they
need to do to support telcos like us, uh, to
deliver a, um, an exceptional experience. But that's not to
say that Starlink aren't going to evolve their capability, um,
or maybe, bring new products out into the market to
compete with them. There's nothing like a bit of competition
in the marketplace.
Um, for, for new products to be developed and, you know,
(14:21):
at the end of the day, customers win when there's
a bit of, um, healthy pressure. What innovation do you
expect to see in the LEO space as the market matures?
So this is a good one. So we talked about OneWeb,
Telesat and Amazon, you know, they're.
They're really delivering broadband connectivity. I think what's really amazing is, uh,
just the amount of different satellite constellations that will be
(14:42):
serving the discrete, um, outcomes in space. Like, the stats
are something like 6000 satellites in orbit today around the planet.
By the end of this decade, that is gonna expand
to 60,000.
And not all of that is doing high-speed broadband. You know,
so much of that is doing low-speed telemetry type services.
A lot of imagery that's gonna come out of that,
(15:04):
and probably some payloads that we hadn't even thought of, um,
will be entering the marketplace. So, you know, I think
what will be super interesting is, you know, really getting
access to technology that we probably, well, I'm sure we
haven't seen in Australia, but, you know, you can imagine.
Now, a proper global marketplace where everyone has equality of
access to this type of technology, no matter where they
(15:26):
want to operate their business or they want to live. Um,
I think one of the challenges that you're gonna see
in that world is, is how does that content go
from the constellation to us as a user, and has
it hit the landscape? And, uh, you know, that's where,
that's where, you know, Vocus is in a pretty good position,
you know, the fact that we run a massive grand
infrastructure network.
(15:47):
Um, but also, um, it's worth mentioning, uh, an involvement
we have with a company called Quasar Satellite. So, you know,
they've certainly seen this problem coming, and they're developing some
pretty interesting ground stations as a service technology to enable some, uh,
software-driven access to this 60,000 or so satellites that are
(16:07):
orbiting above Australia so that we get, everyone has, has
equal access to that, uh, content when they need it.
And I think a lot of people, particularly in regional
or remote areas, would be looking at something like Starlink
or Leo satellites more broadly, just for residential broadband access.
But tell me, how is Leo going to change the
business landscape? Yeah, it's, it's, um, I mean, it's worth
(16:30):
thinking about what connectivity does to communities when they go
from nothing to something, right? That, that completely has
You know, that is a generational change to a community. It, it, uh,
you know, it, it connects people to the rest of
the world, it opens up commerce. Well, it's no different
when you get to high-speed broadband, um, into communities. So, um,
(16:51):
I think the, the biggest thing that we'll notice is
there's no tax to operate in remote or regional parts
of Australia or around the world. So, and the fact that,
that someone can be anywhere in Australia now and get
more than 100 megabits.
Of capacity, assuming they have power, assuming they have, they
have water and the other utilities they need to live, um,
(17:12):
being connected, being able to, you know, operate their business,
whatever they wanna do in a way that they want
to do it, um, that's just gonna give freedom for everybody.
And I think, you know, reflecting on the last couple
of years where
Yeah. The workforce has now been provided with some choice.
We have hybrid, um, ways of working, um, we have
access to new revenue stream streams, but what we do
(17:35):
need access to is connectivity. That's, it was so clear during, um,
the whole COVID experience around the world, how important it
is to be connected and connected really reliably. Um, yeah,
what a great time for Starling to launch their product,
because it gave everyone access to do exactly that, but
do it while they're caring around Australia.
Now I'm going to get both of you to do
a little bit of crystal ball gazing here. Tell me,
(17:58):
in your view, what is a future application of LEO
services that would surprise our listeners?
Uh, so.
Yeah, I think an interesting one that I know people
have talked about in the satellite industry but never really solved, is,
is in emergency management. You know, SATOs is, is a
good way to go out there and get,
(18:18):
Communities have nothing, um, get them connected quickly. Um, I
think what we're seeing in the ability for these constellation
to host, um, unique payloads, like 5G payloads, high quality,
hyperspectral imaging payloads, um, you know, obviously, broadband payloads. The
concept that you could have a community or a region that's,
that's taken off the air.
(18:40):
And really quickly, you can, you can instruct a bunch
of satellites to go to that location, provide connectivity, give
access to content, uh, and then push that content out to,
you know, the experts around the world who are the
best at managing with that information. You know, I think that's, uh,
that type of utopia experience is gonna be made possible
(19:00):
in the foreseeable future.
And when I'd go.
Yeah, for, for me, actually, it's, um, some mobility options
that we can get, which is
Almost completely new in telecommunications to get that kind of
high bandwidth availability, wherever you go, and you can stick a,
(19:21):
a stylink or a Leo.
Antenna on the back of your truck and drive around
and have connectivity while you're driving around. I think it
just opens up so many more possibilities for,
Mobile workforce, like, truly mobile workforce, as in why you're driving. And, and,
you know, what we've seen an uptake of, in our
early stages for these kind of use cases in, you know,
(19:43):
emergency services, in, um, like, uh, fire safety, those kind
of things. But I think business is thinking about the
future of, hey, I can
Have my, one of my workers in, in construction or
mining or utilities or, or whatever it might be, drive
from one side of the country to the other and
never lose service. I think that's amazing. Now we're gonna
(20:05):
go slightly off topic here, away from Leo's and give
you a broader question. Cal, you go first, Ash you
go second. If you had one wish for all business
and government leaders, what would it be and why? Go.
Uh, I, I mean, I've got Leo on the brain,
so I just say, think about, uh, just be creative,
you know? Think, think about something that you, you hadn't
(20:27):
thought of before, get out of the fixed mindset of, um,
to have high bandwidth, you have to be in a
single spot. Just try something different. I think it would
be boring my answer, Luke, but, uh, you know, I
think it's just do the right thing. Like, get, make
sure you get your values right, communicate those values, stand
by them. Um, and, uh, and if you make a mistake,
admit it and be accountable.
(20:48):
Now we come to the final section of the podcast
where we do some rapid fire questions, uh, where I'm
just gonna throw questions at you. I want the first
thing that pops into your mind, don't dwell on it. So, Cal,
I'm gonna go with you first, we're gonna bang through them,
and then I'm gonna turn to Ash second. Cal, what's
your favourite piece of technology? Ah, it's tricky. I kind of,
I kind of love, but I hate my phone. I
(21:09):
think the, the other day we bought a, um, a,
Little device that you can put your phone in for hands-free,
and its own weight holds itself in position, and I
just thought that was so simple and so cool, so,
long answer, but I loved it. Very nice. How do
you disconnect?
Uh, I exercise, and I find if I don't exercise,
that's when I start to get nervous. So I exercise
(21:32):
as much as possible. What's the most important thing you
do for your well-being?
Uh, I think just take time out to, to do
my own thing. So, yeah, be it going to the
gym in the morning, we like to go bowing, just
doing something that's just for me, not productive at all.
What's one thing that would surprise people about you?
(21:53):
Uh, I don't know, like, I, I'm tall, I guess.
Often I get that. I get the height thing. Anyway,
what's the one personal trait that is most important to success?
Uh, I think
Drive, just wanting to get something done and working to
(22:13):
get it done. What's the one thing there needs to
be more of in business today?
Uh, parties.
What great answer. I love it. Now, Ash, you're lucky,
you've got a little sneak preview of the questions coming up.
So here we go. What's your favourite piece of technology? Well,
I'm embarrassed to say it's my phone. I think I'm
(22:33):
addicted to it, so, um, it's gonna be my phone.
How do you disconnect? Uh, for me, it's jujitsu.
What's the most important thing you do for your wellbeing?
It's probably iu-jitsu again, but the reality, I thought about this, uh,
while Cal was answering and I think, uh, I just
like spending quality time with my family, you know, I just,
(22:56):
I'm obsessed with my kids, so, uh, and that, that
puts me in a great mood. What's the one thing
that would surprise people about you?
Um, that I spent the first few years of my
life growing up in Fiji.
That's cool. What's the one personal trait most important to success?
(23:16):
Probably curiosity.
What's the one thing there needs to be more of
in business today? That's easy humility.
Ash, Cal, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
I have learned even more about uh Leo's satellites, and
it's a fascinating topic, so thank you so much for
joining us on the Vocus Inspire podcast. Great, thank you Luke,
(23:36):
thanks Ash.
Thanks so much for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this
episode of Focus Inspire, and we look forward to bringing
you more inspiration in coming episodes. If you've enjoyed this conversation,
we've got so much more to share with you. We've
just released a detailed report called Connectivity for.
0, the new business imperative, featuring trends and insights from
(23:59):
industry leaders and experts and importantly, practical steps to help
you lead your organisation through change. Head to our website
at ocus.com.au to download the full report.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And don't forget, if you want more inspiration and more episodes,
head to Vocus.com.au/podcast. You can follow us on LinkedIn and
Twitter to stay up to date with all things Vocus.
Listen out for the next episode of the Vocus Inspire podcast.
Welcome to Vocus Inspire, the podcast full of brilliant ideas
for business.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, I'm Luke Coleman, head of government and corporate affairs
at Vocus, Australia's leading specialist fibre and network solutions provider.
Before we get things underway, we want to acknowledge and
pay our respects to the traditional custodians of the land
from wherever you're listening. In this podcast, we dive headfirst
into what's on the minds of Australian business and government
(00:30):
leaders to help inspire you and your organisation to go forward,
go further and go faster. So let's go.
Welcome to the Vocus Inspire podcast. One thing we love
talking about is Leo satellite technology, and we've got a
very special episode where we've got not one but 2
(00:53):
Leo satellite experts joining us. First, we've got Ashley Neil.
Ashley is development manager for Vocus's Space and satellite.
Business Ashley's been working in this space for 15 years
and has become one of the country's leading experts. Ashley
works closely with global satellite operators to support their growth
in the Asia Pacific region and bring amazing solutions to
(01:15):
market for Australian customers. Ashley, thank you for being with
us today. Thanks, Luke. Good to be here.
Second of all, we've got Cal Mayhook. He's the product
manager for Vocus's Leo Satellite Solutions. Cal's responsible for the
end to end product design and customer experience of Vocus's
Leo satellite solutions, including our new Vocus satellite Starlink solution. Cal,
(01:39):
great to have you with us. Thanks for having me, Luke.
Now I might kick off with a uh a question
to uh to both of you, so Ashley maybe you
might want to jump in first, just to set the
scene for any listeners that might not be across what
Leo is. What is it that makes Leo satellite services
different to,
Other remote connectivity options. Thanks, Luke. I think the, um,
(02:02):
standout attributes of a low Earth orbit satellite service is
low latency. So people have had satellite connectivity in regional
parts of the country for a very long time around
the world, even. You know, the common complaint is combined
with speed, you know, combined with price is low latency. They, that's,
that's the time taken for a packet to go from
(02:22):
wherever that user is.
Um, to its destination. And, and over geostationary, that can
be 650 milliseconds up to a second. And with low latency,
it's typically under 100 milliseconds. So it's a really great
experience and really not too dissimilar from the type of
experience getting connected from your mobile phone anywhere in metropolitan Australia.
(02:43):
And what industries are going to benefit most from LEO's
satellites and why? Look,
Any industry that's, it's operating a, a high risk or
high value operation. And so, you know, high risk typically
refers to when people are involved. And so if you're
in emergency services, if you're in defence, if you're in mining,
and you, and you know that the well-being and the
(03:04):
welfare of people who are involved, then SATCOMs, good quality
SATCOMs is gonna be part of your, uh, communication plan.
But also, it's high value assets, right? So if you've
got a mining operation in regional parts of the country,
And you want to get the most efficiency out of
that operation, it needs to be connected. And, and the
way miners have been using SATCOMs for a long time
(03:25):
is doing real-time analysis of the efficiency on that mine. Now,
you can do that better and to a higher quality
if you've got low latency and very high throughput. Couple
of questions about the product, so I'm gonna throw over
to Cal for a minute. Cal, just tell us, what
is the Vocus satellite Starling product? Yeah, thanks, Luke. So,
You know, at, at Vocus, we, we provide internet to
(03:47):
thousands of customers. And, and what we've learned from providing
that internet is what customers really value is the Vocus
service experience they get when they buy an internet product
from Vocus. And so our thesis with the Vocus satellite
Starlink product is that we take that same service experience
that we apply to our own, uh, fibre internet, and
we apply that to Starlink's satellite internet product.
(04:10):
So what that means on the ground is that the
customers can expect the same experience they get from fibre
as they will get from a satellite product. And what
we can do is we, we provide expert solution consultants
to help our customers design their solution. We provide a
premium connection experience so we can connect customers faster than
we do than Starlink with options for professional installation or
(04:33):
options for supporting our customers to do their own installation.
We provide a premium support experience through our 24/7 local
NOC that will help to troubleshoot, triage, and, and resolve issues,
and we hold our own spares within Australia that we
can send out to customers to, to get them to
replace kits really quickly, much faster than you would get
(04:53):
with Starlink. Um, and really, so what we're looking to
achieve here is make a really simple experience where you
just buy,
Satellite internet, and it just works. And that's really what
Vocus is all about. You know, we're one of our
values is brilliant, made simple, and we're trying to apply
that to all our products and particularly with satellite internet, because,
you know, in the past, it's been hard to make
(05:14):
internet work with satellite. So this is what we're all about.
We're trying to make it simple, we're trying to make
it so that when you get it and you turn
it on, it just works. And then if for whatever
reason it doesn't work at some point, we have that
premium support, premium service experience to get your network back
up and running.
Now for a company like Vocus, most people would know
Vocus as a fibre infrastructure company. Vocus operates the 2nd
(05:38):
largest inter-capital fibre network in Australia, so why is it
important for a national fibre operator like Vocus to be
providing Starlink as part of its overall portfolio?
Yeah, great question, Luke. So, when you think about it,
satellite internet is really plugging the gaps where fibre can't reach,
as well as providing some, you know, um, redundancy options
(05:59):
and other benefits you can get from it. So,
The way we look at it is that Vocus is
experts are providing highly resilient, highly secure networks to our
customers all over Australia. But there are places where you
can't get fibre, but it's too expensive or you, you know,
customers don't want to pay to, to dig up the
ground and build all that fibre. So we see this
as an extension of the premium secure service experience that
(06:22):
we
Offer to our fibre customers, and we're expanding that footprint
across the whole of Australia, which we're really excited about. Now, I,
I could go on Starlink's website today with my credit
card and buy a Starlink dish and we're off to
the races. So, Cal, why would an organisation buy Starlink
satellite from Vocus rather than just buying it directly from Starlink?
(06:43):
Yeah, another good question, Luke. So, what selling does really
well is they've built a great internet product. Now, what
they don't prioritise, is kind of the way they look
at it, is they don't prioritise giving a customised premium
support experience. They're providing, um, internet to the masses, and
a lot of customers don't want mass internet. They want
(07:05):
a service experience that's tailored to them, and they want
To believe that when something goes wrong, they'll be able
to fix it and they want a, a premium telecommunications
company to manage that service for them. So that's why,
that's the, the role that we see focus fitting, and
you know, we're we're new at this, so it's a, um,
It's early in the, in the product days, and that's
(07:27):
what we're, that was our thesis going into building this product.
And so far we've seen great uptake, you know, it's,
whenever you're launching one of these things, it's like, Oh, that's,
we've got a pretty good idea that that's what our
customers want. But then it's nice to see, you know,
since we've launched the product, we've seen great uptake from
our customers, and we're seeing that customers really do value
that service experience across the board. So, yeah, it's been
(07:49):
really positive. You know, we're in a really unique position
because of the
The portfolio of brands that we sell through into our marketplace. We've,
so we've got our, you know, consumer products go through,
you know, predominantly dodos. And that's known as a well-priced product,
internet product out in the marketplace. And then we have
the more premium, even government defence grade internet products that
(08:12):
you can get through our Vocus business. So, we have
like an intimate understanding of
What customers need to experience for them to be prepared
to fork out a premium. And what we've seen is Starlink, um,
had some gaps in some of those offerings, and, and
we're able to fill those gaps, not by inventing some
new capability within our business, but porting some things that
(08:34):
we already do really well across to wrap around what
Starlink provides. And it's a, it's a really great sort
of synergistic relationship.
Now the Vocus satellite Starlink product is currently in beta.
What does that mean for customers? Yeah, so we have a,
we have a really good vision of what we think the.
The end-state service experience should be for our customers. A
(08:56):
lot of that is about making things really simple for customers.
As you know, whenever you make something simple, usually underneath
the surface, you're hiding lots of complexity and there's a
lot of work that goes into making something really simple
and easy to use. So, we're in the journey of,
of building that out. We have launched a product in,
and we're calling it in beta because we are still
(09:17):
learning and taking our learnings from
Our, our customers that we're working with every day, and
we're refining what that perfect service experience looks like. You know, we're,
we're working with a new vendor, we're working with Starlink.
They haven't really engaged with telcos like us before. And so,
but in terms of reseller side. So, you know, there's
learnings on both sides about how we can, um, provide the,
(09:40):
the experience that we want to for our customers. So really,
if customers get on board now, what we're finding with
customers is they're, they're very pleased and, you know, quite
It's almost like, welcome, like join the fold, we'll learn together.
And it's been really re like customers have been really
receptive to that. It's been really positive, um, learning together
with our customers, and we're definitely, you know, day by day,
we're continuing to improve that service experience upon what it
(10:03):
is already. So, yeah, that's, we're, we're growing towards leaving beta, and,
but we'll never be done. There'll always be something that's, well,
more learnings, there'll always be something that we can add
to the customer experience. Um, yeah.
A question maybe for Ashley this time, can you tell
us a bit about some of the customers who are
currently using Vocus satellite, Starlink, and the way that they're
(10:26):
using it?
We had a certain thesis on the type of demand
profile that we see from our customer base, and, uh,
and I think we got that pretty much right. So,
you know, we're seeing customers who want rapid deployment, uh,
we're seeing customers who need to get, uh, a low
latency service in place to prepare that site for fibre connectivity.
(10:46):
We're seeing it in disaster recovery. Um, we're seeing it
as backup to their fibre or 4G connection. Um, so
all of those use cases that we theorised about, um,
they're actually coming into play.
So, um, we're pretty happy about that. Um,
Yeah, I, I, I'll give you a great anecdote of,
of a service that, that we deployed just before Christmas,
as we were, as we were leading into Christmas. And
(11:07):
mind you, we'd only officially launched this product for maybe
a month. We had a frantic phone call from one
of our customers who's in an aged care practise. And, uh,
and I think it was the 22nd of December, and
a service they'd ordered, uh, from a national carrier wasn't
gonna be delivered in time.
And so, uh, it's the 22nd, and, and I think
(11:28):
the stats are something like, we received the phone call
at 11 o'clock on the 22nd, and by 1 o'clock
on the 23rd, they had a fully connected, high-speed, low
latency starling service, um, is supported by us. And like,
it's just such a great example, and it feels pretty
good because we know what, what no connectivity for that
facility would have felt like. Um, and we've got a
(11:49):
multitude of examples where we've helped mining customers.
Um, we've held a community in far north Queensland that was,
that was, um, flooded out and their, their connectivity went down,
and we deployed super quickly some Starlink services to support them.
We do all of that in a way that, you know,
our customers go, oh, like, it's a familiar way of buying,
(12:10):
it's a familiar process to get support. Yeah, that support
is underpinned by service levels and KPIs. So, it's, they
know what to expect when they purchase that, uh, product
off us. We're also seeing some really cool stuff happening, um,
naturally in the mining industry, um, some great stuff around government. Um,
it's what's really exciting around, um, around government, state government,
(12:31):
in particular is
What's possible around education. We're seeing some really good stories about,
about where Starlink is being deployed, testing the difference it's,
it's making to remote, uh, indigenous communities in changing the
learning outcomes. Uh, and, uh, we're gonna see a change
in learning outcomes for regional Australia that's not a generational change.
(12:53):
We'll see a change that'll happen in 18 months.
Now, we've been talking a lot about Starlink, but Starlink
isn't the only Leo provider in town. Ashley, can you
tell us a bit more about the other LEO satellite
providers and what's going to be brought to market in
the near future? Yeah, sure. So there's, there are some other,
you know, what we call mega constellations, constellations that are, um,
(13:17):
here to deliver broadband, which, you know, at face value
is in competition to Starlink.
Um, Starlink do have a first mover advantage. So, you know,
what they've done is they've set a, a baseline, they
set a standard for, you know, the price for a service,
type of performance experience, and really importantly, the service experience. So,
Uh, it's obvious that the competition, companies like OneWeb and
(13:38):
TeleSat and Amazon, they're, they're looking very carefully at what
Starlink is doing, and they're they're trying to find, uh,
a space where they can be different, and, you know,
I think,
Um, you know, further to what Cal's talking about around
offering a premier experience, um, you know, I think these
other providers are gonna lean more heavily into, you know,
(13:58):
the business, enterprise, government area. Like, what, what do they
need to do to support telcos like us, uh, to
deliver a, um, an exceptional experience. But that's not to
say that Starlink aren't going to evolve their capability, um,
or maybe, bring new products out into the market to
compete with them. There's nothing like a bit of competition
in the marketplace.
Um, for, for new products to be developed and, you know,
(14:21):
at the end of the day, customers win when there's
a bit of, um, healthy pressure. What innovation do you
expect to see in the LEO space as the market matures?
So this is a good one. So we talked about OneWeb,
Telesat and Amazon, you know, they're.
They're really delivering broadband connectivity. I think what's really amazing is, uh,
just the amount of different satellite constellations that will be
(14:42):
serving the discrete, um, outcomes in space. Like, the stats
are something like 6000 satellites in orbit today around the planet.
By the end of this decade, that is gonna expand
to 60,000.
And not all of that is doing high-speed broadband. You know,
so much of that is doing low-speed telemetry type services.
A lot of imagery that's gonna come out of that,
(15:04):
and probably some payloads that we hadn't even thought of, um,
will be entering the marketplace. So, you know, I think
what will be super interesting is, you know, really getting
access to technology that we probably, well, I'm sure we
haven't seen in Australia, but, you know, you can imagine.
Now, a proper global marketplace where everyone has equality of
access to this type of technology, no matter where they
(15:26):
want to operate their business or they want to live. Um,
I think one of the challenges that you're gonna see
in that world is, is how does that content go
from the constellation to us as a user, and has
it hit the landscape? And, uh, you know, that's where,
that's where, you know, Vocus is in a pretty good position,
you know, the fact that we run a massive grand
infrastructure network.
(15:47):
Um, but also, um, it's worth mentioning, uh, an involvement
we have with a company called Quasar Satellite. So, you know,
they've certainly seen this problem coming, and they're developing some
pretty interesting ground stations as a service technology to enable some, uh,
software-driven access to this 60,000 or so satellites that are
(16:07):
orbiting above Australia so that we get, everyone has, has
equal access to that, uh, content when they need it.
And I think a lot of people, particularly in regional
or remote areas, would be looking at something like Starlink
or Leo satellites more broadly, just for residential broadband access.
But tell me, how is Leo going to change the
business landscape? Yeah, it's, it's, um, I mean, it's worth
(16:30):
thinking about what connectivity does to communities when they go
from nothing to something, right? That, that completely has
You know, that is a generational change to a community. It, it, uh,
you know, it, it connects people to the rest of
the world, it opens up commerce. Well, it's no different
when you get to high-speed broadband, um, into communities. So, um,
(16:51):
I think the, the biggest thing that we'll notice is
there's no tax to operate in remote or regional parts
of Australia or around the world. So, and the fact that,
that someone can be anywhere in Australia now and get
more than 100 megabits.
Of capacity, assuming they have power, assuming they have, they
have water and the other utilities they need to live, um,
(17:12):
being connected, being able to, you know, operate their business,
whatever they wanna do in a way that they want
to do it, um, that's just gonna give freedom for everybody.
And I think, you know, reflecting on the last couple
of years where
Yeah. The workforce has now been provided with some choice.
We have hybrid, um, ways of working, um, we have
access to new revenue stream streams, but what we do
(17:35):
need access to is connectivity. That's, it was so clear during, um,
the whole COVID experience around the world, how important it
is to be connected and connected really reliably. Um, yeah,
what a great time for Starling to launch their product,
because it gave everyone access to do exactly that, but
do it while they're caring around Australia.
Now I'm going to get both of you to do
a little bit of crystal ball gazing here. Tell me,
(17:58):
in your view, what is a future application of LEO
services that would surprise our listeners?
Uh, so.
Yeah, I think an interesting one that I know people
have talked about in the satellite industry but never really solved, is,
is in emergency management. You know, SATOs is, is a
good way to go out there and get,
(18:18):
Communities have nothing, um, get them connected quickly. Um, I
think what we're seeing in the ability for these constellation
to host, um, unique payloads, like 5G payloads, high quality,
hyperspectral imaging payloads, um, you know, obviously, broadband payloads. The
concept that you could have a community or a region that's,
that's taken off the air.
(18:40):
And really quickly, you can, you can instruct a bunch
of satellites to go to that location, provide connectivity, give
access to content, uh, and then push that content out to,
you know, the experts around the world who are the
best at managing with that information. You know, I think that's, uh,
that type of utopia experience is gonna be made possible
(19:00):
in the foreseeable future.
And when I'd go.
Yeah, for, for me, actually, it's, um, some mobility options
that we can get, which is
Almost completely new in telecommunications to get that kind of
high bandwidth availability, wherever you go, and you can stick a,
(19:21):
a stylink or a Leo.
Antenna on the back of your truck and drive around
and have connectivity while you're driving around. I think it
just opens up so many more possibilities for,
Mobile workforce, like, truly mobile workforce, as in why you're driving. And, and,
you know, what we've seen an uptake of, in our
early stages for these kind of use cases in, you know,
(19:43):
emergency services, in, um, like, uh, fire safety, those kind
of things. But I think business is thinking about the
future of, hey, I can
Have my, one of my workers in, in construction or
mining or utilities or, or whatever it might be, drive
from one side of the country to the other and
never lose service. I think that's amazing. Now we're gonna
(20:05):
go slightly off topic here, away from Leo's and give
you a broader question. Cal, you go first, Ash you
go second. If you had one wish for all business
and government leaders, what would it be and why? Go.
Uh, I, I mean, I've got Leo on the brain,
so I just say, think about, uh, just be creative,
you know? Think, think about something that you, you hadn't
(20:27):
thought of before, get out of the fixed mindset of, um,
to have high bandwidth, you have to be in a
single spot. Just try something different. I think it would
be boring my answer, Luke, but, uh, you know, I
think it's just do the right thing. Like, get, make
sure you get your values right, communicate those values, stand
by them. Um, and, uh, and if you make a mistake,
admit it and be accountable.
(20:48):
Now we come to the final section of the podcast
where we do some rapid fire questions, uh, where I'm
just gonna throw questions at you. I want the first
thing that pops into your mind, don't dwell on it. So, Cal,
I'm gonna go with you first, we're gonna bang through them,
and then I'm gonna turn to Ash second. Cal, what's
your favourite piece of technology? Ah, it's tricky. I kind of,
I kind of love, but I hate my phone. I
(21:09):
think the, the other day we bought a, um, a,
Little device that you can put your phone in for hands-free,
and its own weight holds itself in position, and I
just thought that was so simple and so cool, so,
long answer, but I loved it. Very nice. How do
you disconnect?
Uh, I exercise, and I find if I don't exercise,
that's when I start to get nervous. So I exercise
(21:32):
as much as possible. What's the most important thing you
do for your well-being?
Uh, I think just take time out to, to do
my own thing. So, yeah, be it going to the
gym in the morning, we like to go bowing, just
doing something that's just for me, not productive at all.
What's one thing that would surprise people about you?
(21:53):
Uh, I don't know, like, I, I'm tall, I guess.
Often I get that. I get the height thing. Anyway,
what's the one personal trait that is most important to success?
Uh, I think
Drive, just wanting to get something done and working to
(22:13):
get it done. What's the one thing there needs to
be more of in business today?
Uh, parties.
What great answer. I love it. Now, Ash, you're lucky,
you've got a little sneak preview of the questions coming up.
So here we go. What's your favourite piece of technology? Well,
I'm embarrassed to say it's my phone. I think I'm
(22:33):
addicted to it, so, um, it's gonna be my phone.
How do you disconnect? Uh, for me, it's jujitsu.
What's the most important thing you do for your wellbeing?
It's probably iu-jitsu again, but the reality, I thought about this, uh,
while Cal was answering and I think, uh, I just
like spending quality time with my family, you know, I just,
(22:56):
I'm obsessed with my kids, so, uh, and that, that
puts me in a great mood. What's the one thing
that would surprise people about you?
Um, that I spent the first few years of my
life growing up in Fiji.
That's cool. What's the one personal trait most important to success?
(23:16):
Probably curiosity.
What's the one thing there needs to be more of
in business today? That's easy humility.
Ash, Cal, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
I have learned even more about uh Leo's satellites, and
it's a fascinating topic, so thank you so much for
joining us on the Vocus Inspire podcast. Great, thank you Luke,
(23:36):
thanks Ash.
Thanks so much for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this
episode of Focus Inspire, and we look forward to bringing
you more inspiration in coming episodes. If you've enjoyed this conversation,
we've got so much more to share with you. We've
just released a detailed report called Connectivity for.
0, the new business imperative, featuring trends and insights from
(23:59):
industry leaders and experts and importantly, practical steps to help
you lead your organisation through change. Head to our website
at ocus.com.au to download the full report.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
And don't forget, if you want more inspiration and more episodes,
head to Vocus.com.au/podcast. You can follow us on LinkedIn and
Twitter to stay up to date with all things Vocus.
Listen out for the next episode of the Vocus Inspire podcast.
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