August 10, 2024 • 27 mins
Unlock the future of internet connectivity with our special guest, Robert Joyce, head of customer strategy and innovation at NBN. In this episode, Robert outlines the game-changing advantages of low-earth orbit (LEO) satellites over traditional geostationary satellites, including their potential for lower latency and global coverage. While NBN isn't building its own LEO constellation, they are strategically considering partnerships to supercharge their service offerings. Discover how emerging technologies like Apple Vision Pro and holographic telepresence are pushing the demand for higher internet speeds, possibly up to 500 Mbps, and learn why educating customers on the necessity of these speeds is more critical than ever.
Next, embark on a nostalgic journey through the evolution of technology, from vinyl records and AM radios to the modern convenience of voice-activated devices like Alexa. Learn how collaborations with industry giants like Nokia and Ericsson and innovative university projects are driving advancements in telecommunications infrastructure. Sustainability is a key focus, with discussions on the significant energy savings of fibre CPEs compared to 5G modems and NBN’s ambitious goal of achieving 100% sustainable power by 2025 through solar farms. Understand how these sustainable practices are not only essential for national infrastructure but also for the broader economy.
Finally, gain insights into the principles of driving innovation and leadership in the technology and telecommunications industry. We dive into the importance of team collaboration, shared vision, and clear objectives, emphasising the 80-20 rule for decision-making. Learn why separating day-to-day operations from strategic thinking is crucial, and how a dedicated team focused on future partnerships and advancements can shape the industry. Explore future trends like increasing bandwidth needs, the potential of holographic telepresence, and how robust bandwidth is vital for technologies like AI in medical imaging. This episode is a treasure trove of insights for anyone interested in the future of communication and technology.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael van Rooyen (00:00):
Today I'm sharing part two of my interview
with Robert Joyce, the head ofcustomer strategy and innovation
at NBN.
If you missed part one, Isuggest having a listen to that.
First, thinking about big kindof hairnet of fiber under the
ground, which is really whatyou've achieved in building this
underlying network for thecountry.
(00:21):
But then I think about theimpacts of low orbit satellite,
which is really new.
You touched on SkyMatch.
It's been around since 2016.
But everyone thinks aboutlow-orbit satellite, the
Starlinks, the OneWebs, allthese newer ones that are
showing up, and then PrivateLT,which is very bespoke for a user
.
But can you just talk to me alittle bit about what impacts
that's having on you guys, or isit really having a big impact
(00:41):
on the way you operate?
Robert Joyce (00:43):
Well, I mean the LEO service.
That's the new kid on the block.
Obviously it's got some backerswith deep pockets.
And, don't forget, a LEOservice is global, so it's not
like our satellite service.
We've got geostationarysatellites, so they're at 35,000
kilometers, they sit on theequator, above Australia and
they have 121 spot beams and wecover Australia constantly with
(01:06):
those two satellites.
Now if we were to deploy a LEOservice, it'd be great while
it's across Australia, but then80% of the time, do we cover
America or do we cover Europe?
It's quite complex, whereas theguys with the deep pockets,
they've hedged their bets andthey've provided global service
and of course, their orbitalaltitude is much lower.
(01:29):
So actually you can get thereand back a lot faster.
So the latency is a lot lower.
The latency on our Geo isaround about 600 milliseconds
Again, laws of physics.
If you think about the distance, 35,000, but that is their back
, their back and their back interms of the latency, whereas
the Leo is around about 40 to 50milliseconds.
Leo is the new kid on the block.
(01:50):
Are we going to deploy a LEOservice?
I don't think so, in terms ofwe're not going to build a
constellation.
Are we going to partner with aLEO provider Probably is the
answer.
You know, and it's in thepublic domain now that we're
talking to the LEO providers,we've launched an RFI.
So a request for informationwith these guys.
Our satellites become end oflife in the 2030s, so we do need
(02:10):
to think about a replacement.
Fair enough.
Michael van Rooyen (02:12):
And off the back of that, considering that
your role is really head ofcustomer strategy innovation,
what strategy are you employingto ensure your customers' needs
are met, and what challenges arethey throwing at you?
Robert Joyce (02:23):
So we have lots of surveys done at NBN.
We survey people when weinstall fiber, so that's how we
know that there is a challengein terms of where the CPU goes
and the in-home Wi-Fi.
But we also talk to them aboutthe future.
What do they use the internetfor?
And so since I came on board,I've put in place what we call a
customer roadmap.
So we look at a typicalcustomer, whether that's a resi
(02:43):
customer, residential customeror a business customer and we
say what do they need?
What services will they need,rather than what bandwidth.
We'll come to bandwidth in aminute If we take a residential
customer today.
Today it's all about Netflix.
As I say, we've discovered inthe last 12 months that 100 megs
is now the hygiene factor.
Not a lot of people believe mewhen I said that initially, but
(03:04):
then I've shown them in the laband they do believe me now.
But beyond that, we'rebeginning to see new devices
like the Apple Vision Pro beingable to do spatial video.
We think spatial video needs aconstant bit rate at the minute,
by our calculation, of about100 megabits per second.
So that's going to peak at alot more than 100 meg.
And when we move to holographictelepresence.
(03:26):
That's the buzzword for you,and I could sit here with vr
glasses on and I would see animage of you sat there in
context.
And that's quite important,because in context means that my
glasses realize there's a deskhere and there's a chair there,
and so they want, they need, toproject you there.
It's no good projecting youhalfway, so they need to project
you there.
It's no good projecting youhalfway through the desk and
(03:47):
chopping you in half, is it?
So there needs to be a lot ofdata collection to get the
context to the cloud server.
That needs about 500 megabitsof information on the uplink to
the cloud server.
The cloud server's receivingthe video from the far end and
also the LiDAR data from theother end, and it's stitching
your image and my image togetherin context and then projecting
it back, sending it back downthe fiber to your VR headset or
(04:10):
AR headset, and then you getprojected and again via our
calculation, we reckon that'sabout 500 megabits per second.
So we're already seeing servicesthat are well beyond what most
people have.
I mean, the average speed inAustralia is 50 megabits per
second on the residential Really50 megabits.
And it's a poor 4G service.
(04:31):
It's a good 3G service.
So you've got these people thatspend a lot of money on 5G
handsets.
Go out there and experience theaverage on the networks.
The 5G networks is around about200 to 400 megabits per second.
Then they come home and they'vejust got that one device.
They've got 22 other connecteddevices and they try and
shoehorn it down.
A 50 meg plan, yes.
And then they wonder why theirinternet's crap at home?
(04:53):
Yeah.
And switch back to the mobileand use the mobile.
So yeah, it's an educationalpiece and it's one that we're
trying to drive through.
We call it the need for speed,but we need to educate people
that well.
The home of the future, withits 35 connected devices, needs
a decent internet connection,absolutely and as you touched on
.
Michael van Rooyen (05:10):
yes, you could argue that 50 meg, 100 meg
is not.
You consume it all the time,but when it's important, as you
said, the need to be able to useit when you need to use it and
deliver the services you need todeliver is where it's key.
And then I think about theincrease in demand for data and
bandwidth IoT sensors, even forresidential People want smart
cameras being able to look atwhat's happening at home, and
(05:30):
they all like the 4K version ofthat, not just standard.
So that's the uplink challenge.
And then I think aboutartificial intelligence, which
is really fueled by lots ofsensor data once the internet's
been absorbed.
Robert Joyce (05:40):
And on that, yeah, it talks about residential.
Let's talk about business.
So exactly that we're talkingto a supermarket putting cameras
all over its store which itdoes already but also cameras on
its personnel, and, rather thanhave somebody sat in the back
office, they're going to streamall of that data to a cloud
server and then the cloud serverwill monitor all the cameras
(06:02):
and it will monitor the camerasfor obviously antisocial
behavior, shoplifting, but itcan also see which products are
taken off the shelf and then putback.
You don't see that, but fromthe cameras you can see that.
So, rather than have teams ofsecurity guys looking at screens
, you would only then have an AIlooking at all of the screens
and then, when there's an eventthat happens, you then that
(06:22):
triggers the feed to the actualhuman who would then see what
needs to be done.
So that needs at least perstore, at least a gigabit per
second in the uplink.
Michael van Rooyen (06:31):
That's amazing and that's probably the
point that a lot of people missis we're used to consuming data
downstream, watching a video,but the need for upstream and we
talked about the VR headsetsand AR and all that is it really
going to change things?
Which is why the NBN as youtouched on the data point about
20% increase in your networkovernight around COVID that was
a real pivot point.
Luckily NBN had been built.
If it was not built, therewould have been a kind of
(06:53):
different play that we wouldhave had to deal with right.
Robert Joyce (06:55):
Yeah, and obviously forecasted.
Now it's funny we've only justre-reached that 20% peak.
Okay, the traffic has grownorganically up to that peak and
beyond now.
So whilst we've seen a tenfoldincrease in the last 10 years,
looking forward, if we just lookat, I guess, video-based
services, we think it's probablyabout threefold over the next
10 years.
That's the official forecast,which makes sense because
(07:18):
there's only so much video wecan watch.
As I say, average Aussiewatching five hours a day, he's
not going to switch to 10 hoursa day.
The bit rates are increasingbecause of the quality the 4K.
More and more of us arewatching 4K, so that will
organically grow the data.
But there's also what we call adotted red line Some call it
Rob's red line, but just in caseI get it wrong which goes a lot
(07:39):
steeper.
And it goes a lot steeperbecause of AI.
And it's not so much that AI onits own will drive demand, but
it's the services that AI canenable that will drive demand.
So I'll give you an example.
So nowadays when you phone thebank or you talk to the bank,
it's either a text-based chatbot, it's a phone call.
(07:59):
There's companies now that arelooking at putting video avatars
, so it could even be a realperson back office, but with a
video avatar and you can talk toa video avatar in real time,
obviously enabled by generativeAI.
You can imagine you could callyour bank.
There's Brad Pitt.
Michael van Rooyen (08:15):
Hi Michael.
Robert Joyce (08:15):
Yeah, I mean, you've had a dodgy transaction
down the shops.
I'm going to fix that for you.
This is now possible, andthere's companies that are
betting the house on this sortof technology.
And my point is there there's 4million interactions with
chatbots or phone customerservice reps every day in
Australia.
Imagine if 25% or 50% of thosewent video, then that drives
(08:38):
demand on our network.
So it's not so much the AIitself that drives the demand,
it's the applications that areenabled by AI.
Michael van Rooyen (08:46):
And that must be an interesting part of
your job is to think about thatright, to lay at night awake
thinking about what might beleft field or right field that
might come all of a sudden, thatthere's a big demand on the
network that we're not expectingyet.
Robert Joyce (08:58):
We do.
But the more that we get fiberin the ground, the more we know
where fit for the future.
At the moment, some of the CPEsthat we're putting in people's
houses, they're good for twogigs, they're good for 10 gigs,
so it's only a logical changethen to enable higher bandwidth.
The challenge probably is moreso at the back end.
When we pass that data off tothe RSPs.
Then they will need to somehowhandle that traffic.
(09:20):
It depends where it goes.
It depends as well.
Is it cached on shore or is itacross a cable?
Then it's big, big peeringcosts.
So yeah, it's interesting and,as you say, I've been in this
game a long time, predicting thefuture.
I mean, I remember when I usedto tell people, oh, you'll be
able to do video calls on yourmobile phone, this is in like
the sort of late 80s, early 90s,and people would just say, yeah
(09:43):
, that's never going to happen.
And you know, here we are.
I mean, one of the examples ismusic.
Think about music and how weconsume music.
So when I grew up, it was vinyl, there were players, or we had
AM, fm radios.
In fact, we had AM, and then Iremember getting the first
stereo radio, whereas now, if Iwant to listen to music.
(10:03):
I don't even have to look forthe track.
Last night I just said to Alexaplay the song that starts with
loving you is the right thing todo.
It's like go your own way.
Yes, and Alexa.
The AI in Alexa goes away,looks at that line, finds out
what song it is, finds out whatsong it is and within a second
you know go your own waysplaying.
And that's how music's consumed.
Michael van Rooyen (10:18):
It's absolutely amazing Thinking
about that then for you layingawake night and making sure the
network's ready.
You no doubt spend a lot oftime collaborating with
stakeholders, governmentagencies and industry players
lots of RSPs.
How do you guys collaborate toreally drive innovation and the
progress of what's coming?
Robert Joyce (10:36):
So we're certainly close to our partners and
vendors.
As I mentioned before, we stayclose to the likes of Nokia and
Ericsson.
So Nokia provide our fiberfixed line, ericsson provide our
5G fixed wireless network, andthese guys obviously deploy
networks across the globe.
So it's in their interest toknow what's coming.
So we take samples from them interms of what they see coming
(10:57):
down the line and, interestinglyenough, ericsson produce a
mobility report every 6, 12months.
That's quite interesting, butthey have a forecast of traffic
growth, typically on the mobilenetwork, but quite often they'll
have household consumption aswell.
We're also in touch with localuniversities, both here in
Sydney and Melbourne.
We've got what we call ourAstrid program.
We're looking at whatinnovations they're seeing, not
(11:19):
just in terms of traffic on thenetwork, but how they can help
us build the networks.
We're doing some pipe roboticswith UTS.
So when I say pipe robotics, Isaid before you know, you've got
this duct, this small pipe thatcarries the copper line to your
house under your garden.
We might need to get a fiberdown there.
Now if the copper line issnapped and we can't use the
copper line to pull the fiber orwe can't, then we have they've
(11:40):
come up with a pipe crawlingrobot that actually crawls like
a worm through that pipe andpulls the fiber through to the
house.
So again, innovation, both onthere and also from a physical
point of view.
Michael van Rooyen (11:53):
Yeah, I mean , you're in the UK or in certain
Europe and I think I rememberthis many years ago Paris.
Obviously we've got Paris Gamescoming up this year as well and
they've gone quite large forfiber footprint.
And again, you may know moreabout this than I would, but I
do remember they talked aboutsomething similar in the sewer
system, about how they use thepipes and a robot like that to
crawl under the city and laythis fiber.
(12:14):
You touched on fiber using lesspower, if I think about driving
copper.
So sustainability is a big, bigtopic and everyone's talking
about sustainability green.
And how are you, with your team, working on sustainability
practices?
Robert Joyce (12:29):
for the future and new projects that you might be
rolling out.
So, on the CPE side, the fiberCPE is much more power efficient
.
It consumes less than fivewatts.
If we compare that to a 5Gmodem, you can get 5G fixed
wireless from the likes ofTelstra.
Something like that consumesmore like 35 watts.
Wow, it's a huge difference.
Yeah, a huge difference.
We're certainly more efficientat the CPE.
We've recently commissionedsome solar farms as well, and
(12:52):
our aim is to move to totalsustainable power by 2025.
So December 2025, we want to bepowered 100% by sustainable
energy.
Excellent, so certainly we havesome large targets, but we're
certainly on track, so we takethis seriously.
At the end of the day, we are anational infrastructure
provider, we're governmentbacked, and so certainly we need
(13:13):
to be doing our part theAustralian economy in terms of
moving to a more sustainablefootprint.
Michael van Rooyen (13:19):
A really key , important, sustainable utility
right is effectively what youare.
And then, if I just pivot alittle bit off the end bin and
just talk about yourself alittle bit, rob, as a leader in
the technology andtelecommunications industry,
what are some of the keyleadership principles that you
believe are essential fordriving innovation, what you
live and breathe and achievingthe strategic goals.
Robert Joyce (13:38):
I mean, I've been around the block, not just in
terms of time but in terms ofplaces.
I started off in the UK andworked in the US and the Middle
East and now here in Australia.
So, yeah, I've experienced manycultures.
But pretty much for me it's allabout teams will work better
when they all share the vision,when they all understand the
clear goals and objectives.
(13:59):
If I'm leading the teamwhenever we start the year, I
often get them together, sayokay, let's have a look at the
big things we need to do thisyear.
Together we'll set thoseobjectives.
I'm not the guy that comes inand says these are the
objectives, we're just going todo this.
It's like what objectives doyou think we need to do team
this year?
Ok, let's get them on the board.
Yeah, let's have a discussionabout them.
Ok, you're never going to gowith.
(14:24):
Let's lock this down.
It's not going to be lockeddown forever.
Again, I work by the 80-20 rule.
If we get 80% there, let's lockit down, let's move forward.
We can pivot if we realizethere's some tweaks to be done.
And if you can do that, if youcan get consensus from the
get-go, then people understandtheir place in the team, their
responsibility, theiraccountability, and you can move
forward on that.
(14:45):
I think, in terms of thinking ofthe future, you need to give
people space.
It's very hard for a person tothink about the future when they
have a day job.
Well, when I say day job, ifI'm in charge of operating the
network, well that's a day jobbecause I can't take my eye off
that network.
I mean, we've seen what anoutage can do to a network and a
brand, so certainly that is thepriority for the operations
(15:06):
guys.
A network and a brand, socertainly that is the priority
for the operations guys.
So you can't have theoperations guys looking at
strategy.
So the strategy guys, though,they can't just sit on their
hands and just look into the sky.
They need to be thinking things, they need to be out there.
So I've got a team that workswith me, the partnership team.
So they're out there talking tothe likes of Google, the likes
of Apple, the likes of Netflix,trying to find out what's
(15:28):
happening.
What do they need from us?
And recently we talked to acompany called Analyze AI, and
they're in the medical imagingspace.
What they're doing is they'relooking at real time.
You would take an MRI scan of apatient and this AI can detect
120 different types of cancer oranomalies from the MRI scan.
So what happens is you can useit in two ways In real time.
(15:50):
It can tell the doctor or thesonographer hey, go left, go
right, zoom in there and startlogging what it sees.
Or if the sonographer justtakes, let's say, 10 MRI scans,
before the MRI scans land on thedoctor's inbox, this thing has
already looked at them, stackranked them and said to the
doctor you need to look at thisone first.
Michael van Rooyen (16:10):
Wow.
Robert Joyce (16:11):
Especially when it comes to brain scans.
The time is of the essence,clearly, with brain injuries.
So they're using it on brainscans to do this.
And again, massive uplinkbandwidth requirements.
And again you can't do that oncopper, you need to be on fiber.
Yeah, of course.
Michael van Rooyen (16:26):
And Broadlink bandwidth requirements
.
And again, you can't do that oncopper, you need to be on fiber
.
Yeah, of course, and then withyour team collaboration there.
If you were giving any adviceto aspiring leaders in the tech
and telecommunications sector,what would you advise to give
them to make the mostsignificant impact?
Robert Joyce (16:39):
Common sense would probably be one of the words.
It's funny, isn't it?
But common sense dictates thatthings will always change.
Things will change.
People will need more bandwidth.
It's quite easy to sit here andsay, oh, surely we've got
enough bandwidth, you know.
But things will change.
Just we can look at, we canlook to the past and we can see
that, of course, again, when Istarted out work, 9.6 kilobits
(17:00):
per second was the high speed onmobile.
Today, the speed record onmobile is 8 gigabits per second
and on fiber, as I say, it's 100gig on our network and that's
something like at least amillion times faster than so.
We will always move forward andI think it's just having that
view that we will move forward.
You need to think about what itis.
You're not always going to getit right, but you certainly
(17:22):
should always look forward andat least have a, as we've got
here a customer roadmap.
We have a roadmap out to thenext five years of what we think
the customers will need.
Yeah, the five-year out is abit woolly because it's device
dependent.
We're betting in five years'time that we are doing
holographic telepresence, butthe challenge is, when are we
going to get the ARs as small asmy glasses, because that's when
(17:44):
people are going to wear themand then use them.
Yes, and so we're reliant ontechnology catching.
It's a bit like when 2G wasdefined they didn't have the
chips to power the phones.
Okay, and they said we'rebanking that by the time we've
defined this GSM spec, in twoyears' time, technology will
have evolved that we can get thechip small enough to go into a
handset.
Wow.
And so this is where we're atnow.
(18:06):
We know that AR is coming, weknow that we're going to have
virtual telepresence, but we'rebanking that the Apples, the
Googles, the glass manufacturersget there, and I'm sure they
will.
I mean, isn't it amazing thatwe carry this phone around today
?
Or your device?
This is your mobile phone, it'syour music system, your mobile
phone, it's your music system.
It's your camera, it's yourvideo camera.
It's incredible.
(18:26):
And it's not changed a lot fora while, has it?
The form factor of that hasbeen probably the same for close
on 10 years.
Michael van Rooyen (18:31):
It has actually 10 years now, yeah, and
I thought about the shrinkingand the expansion and then we
have kind of stabilised it atthe right volume.
I remember people complainedabout this is not foldable
originally and now we're justused to it.
And you touch on a good pointthere, which is the capability
in this thing in your hand, ispeople still don't actually
appreciate how much capabilityit's got.
We were doing a wireless surveyof a building and one of the
(18:54):
guys is now using an iPad andusing the LiDAR to just walk
around and it actually draws themaps and everything for you.
Which in the past, justthinking about the computing
power and that alone and it's inyour hand, and you have this
device that is somulti-universal power and that
alone and it's in your hand, andyou have this device that is so
multi-universal, it's, it's,it's so revolutionary and and
again, I don't think we've seenseen all the, all the bits that
can, that can happen with it.
As we get near the end of yourrob, just reflecting on your
(19:14):
career, what are some of themost rewarding experiences that
you've seen and what motivatesyou to continue driving this
customer strategy in inbn?
Robert Joyce (19:22):
it has been a dare I say myself, an amazing career
to career.
To go from somebody telling methe mobile phones is where the
party's at the big bricks fromgoing, from seeing the
mechanical exchange, theStroudshire exchange in my dad's
exchange, I mean again seeingthat building.
It was three floors ofmechanical switch and they
(19:42):
decided they were going to godigital.
So they didn't have any spacebecause people were getting more
, more and more lines so theybuilt a floor on top.
They put the digital switch onthe whole floor upstairs and
then they transitioned to thedigital switch, ripped out all
the the mechanical switches.
He had three empty floors andthe digital switch on the top.
And then he took me back beforehe retired and he showed me the
exchange and there's just a boxin the corner.
(20:03):
Wow, that's it.
He said that is the exchange.
Everything else, including thedigital switch floor, is empty.
But seeing for me, seeingtechnology move on from that to
where we are today and then lookinto the future, yeah, as I say
it's, it's really exciting.
One of the other key jobs I didwas obviously launching the
first 5g network.
That was really exciting.
In the middle east I wasworking for a company called
(20:25):
arido at the, and we spent thefirst 18 months going around all
the vendors understanding wherethey were, who was ahead, who
was not, because you often getdifferent speeds of development
depending on how much inputthey've had into the standard.
We picked Huawei back then.
So Huawei were chosen becausethey were ahead on the network
side, on the 5G network side, sothis is 2017.
(20:45):
And they were also ahead on theCPE.
So the modem that you put inthe window to connect because
there were no handsets, it wasinitially it was a 5G fixed
wireless access modem, and wegot those in May 2018, and we
launched a network of 100 sites.
Now 100 sites covers prettymuch 60% of the population in
Doha.
Qatar is quite a small place,and so that was a highlight the
(21:06):
5G launch and we did a bit offlag waving.
I think the Americans and theKoreans were a bit annoyed that
we got there first, and so, ifyou look at the history books,
we basically got overwritten onWikipedia, got changed a few
times, and the Saudis were alsotrying to claim.
There's a bit of a contestbetween the Saudis, the
Bahrainis and the Qataris tolaunch first, but we definitely
launched first and I'm quiteproud of that and then another
(21:28):
one rolling back to 3G when theiPhone came out.
So you can imagine that you'vegot this network.
O2 in the UK.
It got an exclusive deal withthe iPhone and the first iPhone
was 2G.
So it's got all these fancyabilities but when it transfers
data it transfers it on 2G, onEdge.
Edge was like 2.5G, so all of asudden their 2G network went
(21:52):
into meltdown.
And then when the 3G handsetcame out, then sure enough, they
could do 3G.
But the problem in Europe, thefirst 3G bands were in the 2100
megahertz band, so they didn'tquite cover the extent of 2G and
especially in central London,deep indoors was only covered by
(22:13):
2G.
So that meant not only were allthe first generation iPhones
hammering the 2G network, allthe new iPhones, the 3G iPhones,
3gss also hammering the 2Gnetwork.
I joined them in 2009, I think,and they were having a meltdown
on the 3G network and it waslike well, the laws of physics
dictate that we need to get deepindoors.
We're never going to do that2100.
We need to take half thespectrum off the 2g network and
repurpose it for 3g.
Yes, but the 2g guy's sayingbut we can't do that because
(22:34):
we'll melt, we'll melt down.
It's well, if you don't do this, you're gonna melt down anyway.
You're gonna melt down anyway.
And so I convinced them to dothis and it was a.
It was a massive job, you know.
You can imagine, we had toreplan the whole of the gsm
network overnight.
But when we turned that u900carrier on and we were really
lucky that the iphone 4 includedthe u900 umts, we basically
(22:57):
halved the traffic on the 2gnetwork overnight and we we
could stop investing in 2g atthat point.
So again, that was, you know, akey, key moment and I'm really
proud of that.
And then, rolling back further,back at Orange, I launched the
first 3G network in the UK.
That was well.
First 3G trial network.
We had three teams acrossEurope in France Telecom, we had
(23:18):
a Nokia team in Bristol that'swhere I was we had an Ericsson
team in Germany, in Munich, andthen we had the Octel team,
french, in Paris, and we wereall rushing to do the first 384
kilobits call, the first softhandover, the first voice and
video call together.
So again, that was quiteinteresting.
We achieved a few, first withthe Nokia, the network and then,
(23:40):
before that, fujitsu.
So yeah, it's always been thenext thing, and that's where
I've been lucky.
I've always.
My job is always to look atwhat comes next, and it really,
it really keeps you on your toes.
Michael van Rooyen (23:53):
It doesn't keep me awake at night, but it
certainly makes my days in theoffice enjoyable absolutely
keeps you motivated, and Itouched on before we started
recording about the evolution ofour industry.
Right, that's just what you'vebeen experiencing, right.
Right, without giving away ageshere over audio, but we've had
this ability to ride thesedifferent waves of technology
throughput and it doesn't seemto be changing, right, it just
continues to evolve.
(24:13):
It's very exciting and that'san amazing history.
As we wrap up, two last pointsquickly is is there a key
takeaway message you want toleave with the listeners today
around connectivity, the NBN andAustralia's digital future?
Robert Joyce (24:26):
Yeah, I mean, of course, Please check your
internet speed.
I think I would say Don't be ona 3G speed at home If you're
used to 5G when you're out andabout, make sure that you've got
at least 100 meg at home and Isaid before, you really will see
a difference on streaming and,if you can look, see if you can
get one of the free fiberupgrades that we're offering.
So again, talk to your RSP.
(24:47):
As I say, fiber is faster andcertainly more reliable.
So once you're on fiber, weshouldn't be digging your garden
for the next 100 or 50 years atleast.
So, beyond the fiber footprint,if you're not in the fiber
footprint, have a look at ifyou're eligible for 5G fixed
wireless access.
We're offering 400 megs on thatservice today and we've got a
plan.
We've already showcased agigabit per second on the
(25:10):
wireless network and there's aroadmap to go all the way to 5
gig, at least with 5G fixedwireless.
Michael van Rooyen (25:15):
Yeah, great, it'll be worth the investment
is what you're saying.
Right To take the time, lookwhat options are available and
you won't regret doing the stepup right.
Even might be a little slightlymore expensive as well, but the
benefit you'll get is that yeahand you can always come back
down.
Robert Joyce (25:27):
Of course, it's not connectivity, just pure
connectivity.
There's no lock-ins here inthis market.
So if you don't like it sixmonths later, you can drop back
down.
But let's see See.
If you like it, try it.
You might like it Exactly right.
Michael van Rooyen (25:39):
Exactly right, and look my last.
My last question, which is Iask all guests of the show, is
you've touched on quite a bitabout your career and history
and evolutions you've beenthrough, but this one's maybe a
slight deviation from that andyou might have a different topic
, but tell me about the mostsignificant technology change or
shift you've been involved withyour career or you've seen.
Robert Joyce (25:58):
I think 4G really was the shift.
I think 3G really took theinternet on the road, made
internet mobile.
But 3G tried to be everything.
3g tried to do voice, it triedto do dial-up data and it tried
to do packet data, whereas bythe time 4G came, 4g it was just
a data service.
All they designed in that casewas an IP shifting technology
(26:22):
and the voice service wascarried in IP packets.
So for me, 4g was what maybe 3Gshould have been, but certainly
we didn't know it at the time.
But when 4G came, you mayremember the 4G iPhones.
They were the ones that reallymade a difference.
3g iPhone was nice.
It was a bit of a toy.
It was novel with the interface.
4g smartphones was where all ofa sudden you had a device that
(26:43):
you could work all day on.
You could do video calls, youcould do browsing, you could do
Teams calls, you could do Worddocuments.
So for me, 4g was the excitingtime.
Michael van Rooyen (26:53):
Fantastic, fantastic.
Look, rob.
I really appreciate the timewith me today.
It's an amazing career inhistory and certainly a pleasure
to have a chat to you about howyou and your organization is
helping Australia become a newdigital economy.
Robert Joyce (27:09):
Thanks, michael.
All right, have a good day.
Cheers.
Today I'm sharing part two of my interview
with Robert Joyce, the head ofcustomer strategy and innovation
at NBN.
If you missed part one, Isuggest having a listen to that.
First, thinking about big kindof hairnet of fiber under the
ground, which is really whatyou've achieved in building this
underlying network for thecountry.
(00:21):
But then I think about theimpacts of low orbit satellite,
which is really new.
You touched on SkyMatch.
It's been around since 2016.
But everyone thinks aboutlow-orbit satellite, the
Starlinks, the OneWebs, allthese newer ones that are
showing up, and then PrivateLT,which is very bespoke for a user
.
But can you just talk to me alittle bit about what impacts
that's having on you guys, or isit really having a big impact
(00:41):
on the way you operate?
Robert Joyce (00:43):
Well, I mean the LEO service.
That's the new kid on the block.
Obviously it's got some backerswith deep pockets.
And, don't forget, a LEOservice is global, so it's not
like our satellite service.
We've got geostationarysatellites, so they're at 35,000
kilometers, they sit on theequator, above Australia and
they have 121 spot beams and wecover Australia constantly with
(01:06):
those two satellites.
Now if we were to deploy a LEOservice, it'd be great while
it's across Australia, but then80% of the time, do we cover
America or do we cover Europe?
It's quite complex, whereas theguys with the deep pockets,
they've hedged their bets andthey've provided global service
and of course, their orbitalaltitude is much lower.
(01:29):
So actually you can get thereand back a lot faster.
So the latency is a lot lower.
The latency on our Geo isaround about 600 milliseconds
Again, laws of physics.
If you think about the distance, 35,000, but that is their back
, their back and their back interms of the latency, whereas
the Leo is around about 40 to 50milliseconds.
Leo is the new kid on the block.
(01:50):
Are we going to deploy a LEOservice?
I don't think so, in terms ofwe're not going to build a
constellation.
Are we going to partner with aLEO provider Probably is the
answer.
You know, and it's in thepublic domain now that we're
talking to the LEO providers,we've launched an RFI.
So a request for informationwith these guys.
Our satellites become end oflife in the 2030s, so we do need
(02:10):
to think about a replacement.
Fair enough.
Michael van Rooyen (02:12):
And off the back of that, considering that
your role is really head ofcustomer strategy innovation,
what strategy are you employingto ensure your customers' needs
are met, and what challenges arethey throwing at you?
Robert Joyce (02:23):
So we have lots of surveys done at NBN.
We survey people when weinstall fiber, so that's how we
know that there is a challengein terms of where the CPU goes
and the in-home Wi-Fi.
But we also talk to them aboutthe future.
What do they use the internetfor?
And so since I came on board,I've put in place what we call a
customer roadmap.
So we look at a typicalcustomer, whether that's a resi
(02:43):
customer, residential customeror a business customer and we
say what do they need?
What services will they need,rather than what bandwidth.
We'll come to bandwidth in aminute If we take a residential
customer today.
Today it's all about Netflix.
As I say, we've discovered inthe last 12 months that 100 megs
is now the hygiene factor.
Not a lot of people believe mewhen I said that initially, but
(03:04):
then I've shown them in the laband they do believe me now.
But beyond that, we'rebeginning to see new devices
like the Apple Vision Pro beingable to do spatial video.
We think spatial video needs aconstant bit rate at the minute,
by our calculation, of about100 megabits per second.
So that's going to peak at alot more than 100 meg.
And when we move to holographictelepresence.
(03:26):
That's the buzzword for you,and I could sit here with vr
glasses on and I would see animage of you sat there in
context.
And that's quite important,because in context means that my
glasses realize there's a deskhere and there's a chair there,
and so they want, they need, toproject you there.
It's no good projecting youhalfway, so they need to project
you there.
It's no good projecting youhalfway through the desk and
(03:47):
chopping you in half, is it?
So there needs to be a lot ofdata collection to get the
context to the cloud server.
That needs about 500 megabitsof information on the uplink to
the cloud server.
The cloud server's receivingthe video from the far end and
also the LiDAR data from theother end, and it's stitching
your image and my image togetherin context and then projecting
it back, sending it back downthe fiber to your VR headset or
(04:10):
AR headset, and then you getprojected and again via our
calculation, we reckon that'sabout 500 megabits per second.
So we're already seeing servicesthat are well beyond what most
people have.
I mean, the average speed inAustralia is 50 megabits per
second on the residential Really50 megabits.
And it's a poor 4G service.
(04:31):
It's a good 3G service.
So you've got these people thatspend a lot of money on 5G
handsets.
Go out there and experience theaverage on the networks.
The 5G networks is around about200 to 400 megabits per second.
Then they come home and they'vejust got that one device.
They've got 22 other connecteddevices and they try and
shoehorn it down.
A 50 meg plan, yes.
And then they wonder why theirinternet's crap at home?
(04:53):
Yeah.
And switch back to the mobileand use the mobile.
So yeah, it's an educationalpiece and it's one that we're
trying to drive through.
We call it the need for speed,but we need to educate people
that well.
The home of the future, withits 35 connected devices, needs
a decent internet connection,absolutely and as you touched on
.
Michael van Rooyen (05:10):
yes, you could argue that 50 meg, 100 meg
is not.
You consume it all the time,but when it's important, as you
said, the need to be able to useit when you need to use it and
deliver the services you need todeliver is where it's key.
And then I think about theincrease in demand for data and
bandwidth IoT sensors, even forresidential People want smart
cameras being able to look atwhat's happening at home, and
(05:30):
they all like the 4K version ofthat, not just standard.
So that's the uplink challenge.
And then I think aboutartificial intelligence, which
is really fueled by lots ofsensor data once the internet's
been absorbed.
Robert Joyce (05:40):
And on that, yeah, it talks about residential.
Let's talk about business.
So exactly that we're talkingto a supermarket putting cameras
all over its store which itdoes already but also cameras on
its personnel, and, rather thanhave somebody sat in the back
office, they're going to streamall of that data to a cloud
server and then the cloud serverwill monitor all the cameras
(06:02):
and it will monitor the camerasfor obviously antisocial
behavior, shoplifting, but itcan also see which products are
taken off the shelf and then putback.
You don't see that, but fromthe cameras you can see that.
So, rather than have teams ofsecurity guys looking at screens
, you would only then have an AIlooking at all of the screens
and then, when there's an eventthat happens, you then that
(06:22):
triggers the feed to the actualhuman who would then see what
needs to be done.
So that needs at least perstore, at least a gigabit per
second in the uplink.
Michael van Rooyen (06:31):
That's amazing and that's probably the
point that a lot of people missis we're used to consuming data
downstream, watching a video,but the need for upstream and we
talked about the VR headsetsand AR and all that is it really
going to change things?
Which is why the NBN as youtouched on the data point about
20% increase in your networkovernight around COVID that was
a real pivot point.
Luckily NBN had been built.
If it was not built, therewould have been a kind of
(06:53):
different play that we wouldhave had to deal with right.
Robert Joyce (06:55):
Yeah, and obviously forecasted.
Now it's funny we've only justre-reached that 20% peak.
Okay, the traffic has grownorganically up to that peak and
beyond now.
So whilst we've seen a tenfoldincrease in the last 10 years,
looking forward, if we just lookat, I guess, video-based
services, we think it's probablyabout threefold over the next
10 years.
That's the official forecast,which makes sense because
(07:18):
there's only so much video wecan watch.
As I say, average Aussiewatching five hours a day, he's
not going to switch to 10 hoursa day.
The bit rates are increasingbecause of the quality the 4K.
More and more of us arewatching 4K, so that will
organically grow the data.
But there's also what we call adotted red line Some call it
Rob's red line, but just in caseI get it wrong which goes a lot
(07:39):
steeper.
And it goes a lot steeperbecause of AI.
And it's not so much that AI onits own will drive demand, but
it's the services that AI canenable that will drive demand.
So I'll give you an example.
So nowadays when you phone thebank or you talk to the bank,
it's either a text-based chatbot, it's a phone call.
(07:59):
There's companies now that arelooking at putting video avatars
, so it could even be a realperson back office, but with a
video avatar and you can talk toa video avatar in real time,
obviously enabled by generativeAI.
You can imagine you could callyour bank.
There's Brad Pitt.
Michael van Rooyen (08:15):
Hi Michael.
Robert Joyce (08:15):
Yeah, I mean, you've had a dodgy transaction
down the shops.
I'm going to fix that for you.
This is now possible, andthere's companies that are
betting the house on this sortof technology.
And my point is there there's 4million interactions with
chatbots or phone customerservice reps every day in
Australia.
Imagine if 25% or 50% of thosewent video, then that drives
(08:38):
demand on our network.
So it's not so much the AIitself that drives the demand,
it's the applications that areenabled by AI.
Michael van Rooyen (08:46):
And that must be an interesting part of
your job is to think about thatright, to lay at night awake
thinking about what might beleft field or right field that
might come all of a sudden, thatthere's a big demand on the
network that we're not expectingyet.
Robert Joyce (08:58):
We do.
But the more that we get fiberin the ground, the more we know
where fit for the future.
At the moment, some of the CPEsthat we're putting in people's
houses, they're good for twogigs, they're good for 10 gigs,
so it's only a logical changethen to enable higher bandwidth.
The challenge probably is moreso at the back end.
When we pass that data off tothe RSPs.
Then they will need to somehowhandle that traffic.
(09:20):
It depends where it goes.
It depends as well.
Is it cached on shore or is itacross a cable?
Then it's big, big peeringcosts.
So yeah, it's interesting and,as you say, I've been in this
game a long time, predicting thefuture.
I mean, I remember when I usedto tell people, oh, you'll be
able to do video calls on yourmobile phone, this is in like
the sort of late 80s, early 90s,and people would just say, yeah
(09:43):
, that's never going to happen.
And you know, here we are.
I mean, one of the examples ismusic.
Think about music and how weconsume music.
So when I grew up, it was vinyl, there were players, or we had
AM, fm radios.
In fact, we had AM, and then Iremember getting the first
stereo radio, whereas now, if Iwant to listen to music.
(10:03):
I don't even have to look forthe track.
Last night I just said to Alexaplay the song that starts with
loving you is the right thing todo.
It's like go your own way.
Yes, and Alexa.
The AI in Alexa goes away,looks at that line, finds out
what song it is, finds out whatsong it is and within a second
you know go your own waysplaying.
And that's how music's consumed.
Michael van Rooyen (10:18):
It's absolutely amazing Thinking
about that then for you layingawake night and making sure the
network's ready.
You no doubt spend a lot oftime collaborating with
stakeholders, governmentagencies and industry players
lots of RSPs.
How do you guys collaborate toreally drive innovation and the
progress of what's coming?
Robert Joyce (10:36):
So we're certainly close to our partners and
vendors.
As I mentioned before, we stayclose to the likes of Nokia and
Ericsson.
So Nokia provide our fiberfixed line, ericsson provide our
5G fixed wireless network, andthese guys obviously deploy
networks across the globe.
So it's in their interest toknow what's coming.
So we take samples from them interms of what they see coming
(10:57):
down the line and, interestinglyenough, ericsson produce a
mobility report every 6, 12months.
That's quite interesting, butthey have a forecast of traffic
growth, typically on the mobilenetwork, but quite often they'll
have household consumption aswell.
We're also in touch with localuniversities, both here in
Sydney and Melbourne.
We've got what we call ourAstrid program.
We're looking at whatinnovations they're seeing, not
(11:19):
just in terms of traffic on thenetwork, but how they can help
us build the networks.
We're doing some pipe roboticswith UTS.
So when I say pipe robotics, Isaid before you know, you've got
this duct, this small pipe thatcarries the copper line to your
house under your garden.
We might need to get a fiberdown there.
Now if the copper line issnapped and we can't use the
copper line to pull the fiber orwe can't, then we have they've
(11:40):
come up with a pipe crawlingrobot that actually crawls like
a worm through that pipe andpulls the fiber through to the
house.
So again, innovation, both onthere and also from a physical
point of view.
Michael van Rooyen (11:53):
Yeah, I mean , you're in the UK or in certain
Europe and I think I rememberthis many years ago Paris.
Obviously we've got Paris Gamescoming up this year as well and
they've gone quite large forfiber footprint.
And again, you may know moreabout this than I would, but I
do remember they talked aboutsomething similar in the sewer
system, about how they use thepipes and a robot like that to
crawl under the city and laythis fiber.
(12:14):
You touched on fiber using lesspower, if I think about driving
copper.
So sustainability is a big, bigtopic and everyone's talking
about sustainability green.
And how are you, with your team, working on sustainability
practices?
Robert Joyce (12:29):
for the future and new projects that you might be
rolling out.
So, on the CPE side, the fiberCPE is much more power efficient
.
It consumes less than fivewatts.
If we compare that to a 5Gmodem, you can get 5G fixed
wireless from the likes ofTelstra.
Something like that consumesmore like 35 watts.
Wow, it's a huge difference.
Yeah, a huge difference.
We're certainly more efficientat the CPE.
We've recently commissionedsome solar farms as well, and
(12:52):
our aim is to move to totalsustainable power by 2025.
So December 2025, we want to bepowered 100% by sustainable
energy.
Excellent, so certainly we havesome large targets, but we're
certainly on track, so we takethis seriously.
At the end of the day, we are anational infrastructure
provider, we're governmentbacked, and so certainly we need
(13:13):
to be doing our part theAustralian economy in terms of
moving to a more sustainablefootprint.
Michael van Rooyen (13:19):
A really key , important, sustainable utility
right is effectively what youare.
And then, if I just pivot alittle bit off the end bin and
just talk about yourself alittle bit, rob, as a leader in
the technology andtelecommunications industry,
what are some of the keyleadership principles that you
believe are essential fordriving innovation, what you
live and breathe and achievingthe strategic goals.
Robert Joyce (13:38):
I mean, I've been around the block, not just in
terms of time but in terms ofplaces.
I started off in the UK andworked in the US and the Middle
East and now here in Australia.
So, yeah, I've experienced manycultures.
But pretty much for me it's allabout teams will work better
when they all share the vision,when they all understand the
clear goals and objectives.
(13:59):
If I'm leading the teamwhenever we start the year, I
often get them together, sayokay, let's have a look at the
big things we need to do thisyear.
Together we'll set thoseobjectives.
I'm not the guy that comes inand says these are the
objectives, we're just going todo this.
It's like what objectives doyou think we need to do team
this year?
Ok, let's get them on the board.
Yeah, let's have a discussionabout them.
Ok, you're never going to gowith.
(14:24):
Let's lock this down.
It's not going to be lockeddown forever.
Again, I work by the 80-20 rule.
If we get 80% there, let's lockit down, let's move forward.
We can pivot if we realizethere's some tweaks to be done.
And if you can do that, if youcan get consensus from the
get-go, then people understandtheir place in the team, their
responsibility, theiraccountability, and you can move
forward on that.
(14:45):
I think, in terms of thinking ofthe future, you need to give
people space.
It's very hard for a person tothink about the future when they
have a day job.
Well, when I say day job, ifI'm in charge of operating the
network, well that's a day jobbecause I can't take my eye off
that network.
I mean, we've seen what anoutage can do to a network and a
brand, so certainly that is thepriority for the operations
(15:06):
guys.
A network and a brand, socertainly that is the priority
for the operations guys.
So you can't have theoperations guys looking at
strategy.
So the strategy guys, though,they can't just sit on their
hands and just look into the sky.
They need to be thinking things, they need to be out there.
So I've got a team that workswith me, the partnership team.
So they're out there talking tothe likes of Google, the likes
of Apple, the likes of Netflix,trying to find out what's
(15:28):
happening.
What do they need from us?
And recently we talked to acompany called Analyze AI, and
they're in the medical imagingspace.
What they're doing is they'relooking at real time.
You would take an MRI scan of apatient and this AI can detect
120 different types of cancer oranomalies from the MRI scan.
So what happens is you can useit in two ways In real time.
(15:50):
It can tell the doctor or thesonographer hey, go left, go
right, zoom in there and startlogging what it sees.
Or if the sonographer justtakes, let's say, 10 MRI scans,
before the MRI scans land on thedoctor's inbox, this thing has
already looked at them, stackranked them and said to the
doctor you need to look at thisone first.
Michael van Rooyen (16:10):
Wow.
Robert Joyce (16:11):
Especially when it comes to brain scans.
The time is of the essence,clearly, with brain injuries.
So they're using it on brainscans to do this.
And again, massive uplinkbandwidth requirements.
And again you can't do that oncopper, you need to be on fiber.
Yeah, of course.
Michael van Rooyen (16:26):
And Broadlink bandwidth requirements
.
And again, you can't do that oncopper, you need to be on fiber
.
Yeah, of course, and then withyour team collaboration there.
If you were giving any adviceto aspiring leaders in the tech
and telecommunications sector,what would you advise to give
them to make the mostsignificant impact?
Robert Joyce (16:39):
Common sense would probably be one of the words.
It's funny, isn't it?
But common sense dictates thatthings will always change.
Things will change.
People will need more bandwidth.
It's quite easy to sit here andsay, oh, surely we've got
enough bandwidth, you know.
But things will change.
Just we can look at, we canlook to the past and we can see
that, of course, again, when Istarted out work, 9.6 kilobits
(17:00):
per second was the high speed onmobile.
Today, the speed record onmobile is 8 gigabits per second
and on fiber, as I say, it's 100gig on our network and that's
something like at least amillion times faster than so.
We will always move forward andI think it's just having that
view that we will move forward.
You need to think about what itis.
You're not always going to getit right, but you certainly
(17:22):
should always look forward andat least have a, as we've got
here a customer roadmap.
We have a roadmap out to thenext five years of what we think
the customers will need.
Yeah, the five-year out is abit woolly because it's device
dependent.
We're betting in five years'time that we are doing
holographic telepresence, butthe challenge is, when are we
going to get the ARs as small asmy glasses, because that's when
(17:44):
people are going to wear themand then use them.
Yes, and so we're reliant ontechnology catching.
It's a bit like when 2G wasdefined they didn't have the
chips to power the phones.
Okay, and they said we'rebanking that by the time we've
defined this GSM spec, in twoyears' time, technology will
have evolved that we can get thechip small enough to go into a
handset.
Wow.
And so this is where we're atnow.
(18:06):
We know that AR is coming, weknow that we're going to have
virtual telepresence, but we'rebanking that the Apples, the
Googles, the glass manufacturersget there, and I'm sure they
will.
I mean, isn't it amazing thatwe carry this phone around today
?
Or your device?
This is your mobile phone, it'syour music system, your mobile
phone, it's your music system.
It's your camera, it's yourvideo camera.
It's incredible.
(18:26):
And it's not changed a lot fora while, has it?
The form factor of that hasbeen probably the same for close
on 10 years.
Michael van Rooyen (18:31):
It has actually 10 years now, yeah, and
I thought about the shrinkingand the expansion and then we
have kind of stabilised it atthe right volume.
I remember people complainedabout this is not foldable
originally and now we're justused to it.
And you touch on a good pointthere, which is the capability
in this thing in your hand, ispeople still don't actually
appreciate how much capabilityit's got.
We were doing a wireless surveyof a building and one of the
(18:54):
guys is now using an iPad andusing the LiDAR to just walk
around and it actually draws themaps and everything for you.
Which in the past, justthinking about the computing
power and that alone and it's inyour hand, and you have this
device that is somulti-universal power and that
alone and it's in your hand, andyou have this device that is so
multi-universal, it's, it's,it's so revolutionary and and
again, I don't think we've seenseen all the, all the bits that
can, that can happen with it.
As we get near the end of yourrob, just reflecting on your
(19:14):
career, what are some of themost rewarding experiences that
you've seen and what motivatesyou to continue driving this
customer strategy in inbn?
Robert Joyce (19:22):
it has been a dare I say myself, an amazing career
to career.
To go from somebody telling methe mobile phones is where the
party's at the big bricks fromgoing, from seeing the
mechanical exchange, theStroudshire exchange in my dad's
exchange, I mean again seeingthat building.
It was three floors ofmechanical switch and they
(19:42):
decided they were going to godigital.
So they didn't have any spacebecause people were getting more
, more and more lines so theybuilt a floor on top.
They put the digital switch onthe whole floor upstairs and
then they transitioned to thedigital switch, ripped out all
the the mechanical switches.
He had three empty floors andthe digital switch on the top.
And then he took me back beforehe retired and he showed me the
exchange and there's just a boxin the corner.
(20:03):
Wow, that's it.
He said that is the exchange.
Everything else, including thedigital switch floor, is empty.
But seeing for me, seeingtechnology move on from that to
where we are today and then lookinto the future, yeah, as I say
it's, it's really exciting.
One of the other key jobs I didwas obviously launching the
first 5g network.
That was really exciting.
In the middle east I wasworking for a company called
(20:25):
arido at the, and we spent thefirst 18 months going around all
the vendors understanding wherethey were, who was ahead, who
was not, because you often getdifferent speeds of development
depending on how much inputthey've had into the standard.
We picked Huawei back then.
So Huawei were chosen becausethey were ahead on the network
side, on the 5G network side, sothis is 2017.
(20:45):
And they were also ahead on theCPE.
So the modem that you put inthe window to connect because
there were no handsets, it wasinitially it was a 5G fixed
wireless access modem, and wegot those in May 2018, and we
launched a network of 100 sites.
Now 100 sites covers prettymuch 60% of the population in
Doha.
Qatar is quite a small place,and so that was a highlight the
(21:06):
5G launch and we did a bit offlag waving.
I think the Americans and theKoreans were a bit annoyed that
we got there first, and so, ifyou look at the history books,
we basically got overwritten onWikipedia, got changed a few
times, and the Saudis were alsotrying to claim.
There's a bit of a contestbetween the Saudis, the
Bahrainis and the Qataris tolaunch first, but we definitely
launched first and I'm quiteproud of that and then another
(21:28):
one rolling back to 3G when theiPhone came out.
So you can imagine that you'vegot this network.
O2 in the UK.
It got an exclusive deal withthe iPhone and the first iPhone
was 2G.
So it's got all these fancyabilities but when it transfers
data it transfers it on 2G, onEdge.
Edge was like 2.5G, so all of asudden their 2G network went
(21:52):
into meltdown.
And then when the 3G handsetcame out, then sure enough, they
could do 3G.
But the problem in Europe, thefirst 3G bands were in the 2100
megahertz band, so they didn'tquite cover the extent of 2G and
especially in central London,deep indoors was only covered by
(22:13):
2G.
So that meant not only were allthe first generation iPhones
hammering the 2G network, allthe new iPhones, the 3G iPhones,
3gss also hammering the 2Gnetwork.
I joined them in 2009, I think,and they were having a meltdown
on the 3G network and it waslike well, the laws of physics
dictate that we need to get deepindoors.
We're never going to do that2100.
We need to take half thespectrum off the 2g network and
repurpose it for 3g.
Yes, but the 2g guy's sayingbut we can't do that because
(22:34):
we'll melt, we'll melt down.
It's well, if you don't do this, you're gonna melt down anyway.
You're gonna melt down anyway.
And so I convinced them to dothis and it was a.
It was a massive job, you know.
You can imagine, we had toreplan the whole of the gsm
network overnight.
But when we turned that u900carrier on and we were really
lucky that the iphone 4 includedthe u900 umts, we basically
(22:57):
halved the traffic on the 2gnetwork overnight and we we
could stop investing in 2g atthat point.
So again, that was, you know, akey, key moment and I'm really
proud of that.
And then, rolling back further,back at Orange, I launched the
first 3G network in the UK.
That was well.
First 3G trial network.
We had three teams acrossEurope in France Telecom, we had
(23:18):
a Nokia team in Bristol that'swhere I was we had an Ericsson
team in Germany, in Munich, andthen we had the Octel team,
french, in Paris, and we wereall rushing to do the first 384
kilobits call, the first softhandover, the first voice and
video call together.
So again, that was quiteinteresting.
We achieved a few, first withthe Nokia, the network and then,
(23:40):
before that, fujitsu.
So yeah, it's always been thenext thing, and that's where
I've been lucky.
I've always.
My job is always to look atwhat comes next, and it really,
it really keeps you on your toes.
Michael van Rooyen (23:53):
It doesn't keep me awake at night, but it
certainly makes my days in theoffice enjoyable absolutely
keeps you motivated, and Itouched on before we started
recording about the evolution ofour industry.
Right, that's just what you'vebeen experiencing, right.
Right, without giving away ageshere over audio, but we've had
this ability to ride thesedifferent waves of technology
throughput and it doesn't seemto be changing, right, it just
continues to evolve.
(24:13):
It's very exciting and that'san amazing history.
As we wrap up, two last pointsquickly is is there a key
takeaway message you want toleave with the listeners today
around connectivity, the NBN andAustralia's digital future?
Robert Joyce (24:26):
Yeah, I mean, of course, Please check your
internet speed.
I think I would say Don't be ona 3G speed at home If you're
used to 5G when you're out andabout, make sure that you've got
at least 100 meg at home and Isaid before, you really will see
a difference on streaming and,if you can look, see if you can
get one of the free fiberupgrades that we're offering.
So again, talk to your RSP.
(24:47):
As I say, fiber is faster andcertainly more reliable.
So once you're on fiber, weshouldn't be digging your garden
for the next 100 or 50 years atleast.
So, beyond the fiber footprint,if you're not in the fiber
footprint, have a look at ifyou're eligible for 5G fixed
wireless access.
We're offering 400 megs on thatservice today and we've got a
plan.
We've already showcased agigabit per second on the
(25:10):
wireless network and there's aroadmap to go all the way to 5
gig, at least with 5G fixedwireless.
Michael van Rooyen (25:15):
Yeah, great, it'll be worth the investment
is what you're saying.
Right To take the time, lookwhat options are available and
you won't regret doing the stepup right.
Even might be a little slightlymore expensive as well, but the
benefit you'll get is that yeahand you can always come back
down.
Robert Joyce (25:27):
Of course, it's not connectivity, just pure
connectivity.
There's no lock-ins here inthis market.
So if you don't like it sixmonths later, you can drop back
down.
But let's see See.
If you like it, try it.
You might like it Exactly right.
Michael van Rooyen (25:39):
Exactly right, and look my last.
My last question, which is Iask all guests of the show, is
you've touched on quite a bitabout your career and history
and evolutions you've beenthrough, but this one's maybe a
slight deviation from that andyou might have a different topic
, but tell me about the mostsignificant technology change or
shift you've been involved withyour career or you've seen.
Robert Joyce (25:58):
I think 4G really was the shift.
I think 3G really took theinternet on the road, made
internet mobile.
But 3G tried to be everything.
3g tried to do voice, it triedto do dial-up data and it tried
to do packet data, whereas bythe time 4G came, 4g it was just
a data service.
All they designed in that casewas an IP shifting technology
(26:22):
and the voice service wascarried in IP packets.
So for me, 4g was what maybe 3Gshould have been, but certainly
we didn't know it at the time.
But when 4G came, you mayremember the 4G iPhones.
They were the ones that reallymade a difference.
3g iPhone was nice.
It was a bit of a toy.
It was novel with the interface.
4g smartphones was where all ofa sudden you had a device that
(26:43):
you could work all day on.
You could do video calls, youcould do browsing, you could do
Teams calls, you could do Worddocuments.
So for me, 4g was the excitingtime.
Michael van Rooyen (26:53):
Fantastic, fantastic.
Look, rob.
I really appreciate the timewith me today.
It's an amazing career inhistory and certainly a pleasure
to have a chat to you about howyou and your organization is
helping Australia become a newdigital economy.
Robert Joyce (27:09):
Thanks, michael.
All right, have a good day.
Cheers.
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