Source: http://www.uecomm.com.au/wavelength/2/ 

On a mission to improve security, Bob Jane's IT Manager, Edward Hore began looking for alternatives to doing business over the internet.

He wanted a secure private network and with the help of Uecomm, Bob Jane now has a nationwide WAN, with Ethernet ports to 142 sites, which include franchises, state offices and warehouses and company stores.

After talking to Telstra, Primus and Uecomm, Edward decided to go with Uecomm, who had the job completed in 40 days.

"Telstra was very sales oriented (but) I need facts and figures. They wouldn't talk technical with me. They wouldn't tell me how things would work. They wouldn't tell me what I wanted to know, and they were using too many third party providers, which would cost me more.

"Primus couldn't deliver a private WAN which was reasonably portable. They could tell me when it went down but would charge more to tell me why.

"Uecomm could deliver what the network design that I wanted and showed me what they were doing and why."

The Uecomm network is designed to fit in with Bob Jane's existing enterprise resource planning transaction application MarlinTX.

Edward is also happy with Uecomm's Network Operations Centre, which operates 24 hours a day.

"There is a guaranteed level of service with a good response time. I can talk to a technical person in a hurry if I need to. I have spoken to them at times like 1am and 5am and they had intelligent answers."

Uecomm's director of strategy, Brendan Park said the move to a private network posed no technical challenges but the difficulty was selling the idea.

"Retail customers are very price-sensitive and are generally conservative IT buyers (and) will continue to use inexpensive legacy systems. A traditional retail store may have ISDN for Eftpos but Bob Jane is an early adopter with DSL for a network of more than 130 stores." Edward wasn't just focused on saving money. He was aware of other benefits a private network could bring to the business, says Mr Park.

As a result of the Uecomm network, franchises have more contact with the head office and other sites and according to Edward "It's starting to have a family feel now".

Mr Park says the IT manager retains control of the network and doesn't have to negotiate with the carrier. "This network allows rapid turn on of bandwidth and doesn't require a new roll-out (because) it can be turned on by configuration changes to the software. Another benefit is running Eftpos over the network, which will save Bob Jane $270 a month at every site," Mr Park said.