Last year we brought our extensive, resilient, and high-performance fibre and mobile networks together to launch mobile backup for our Ethernet Access product. This year we are targeting a range of enhancements to give customers more value from the solution as it quickly becomes the default for new Ethernet Access orders.

We launched Ethernet Access - Mobile Backup as an integrated Layer 2 mobile backup solution, the first of its kind in Australia, to enable you to offer your customers 99.95% service availability without adding network management complexity. 

Mobile Backup automatically switches your customer to the Telstra Wholesale Mobile Service Coverage area on the Telstra Mobile Network if their tail-end fibre connection goes down, while you receive notifications so you can keep your customer up to date with the service status.

It’s pleasing to see how popular the solution is with many customers who are moving all their new Ethernet Access orders to mobile backup.

This popularity is testament to the co-creation process we used in developing the solution. We worked closely with customers to create the first iteration and we continue to collaborate with customers to identify enhancements.

Based on the valuable feedback customers provide, we are targeting a number of improvements over the course of the next few quarters.
 

Faster mobile data speeds

At first release the available backup speeds were up to 2Mbps and up to 10Mbps and in December 2020 we added up to 20Mbps and up to 40Mbps speeds for the backup solution.

Network Diagnostics

In March 2021 we enabled the capability for customers to perform Ethernet Access - Mobile Backup diagnostics through the My Network™ tool.  
 
This allows you to:

1. Check the active connection in real time to assist trouble shooting
   
   
2. Perform a mobile backup test to validate mobile backup operations 
   
   
3. Provide technical insights that could help you improve the mobile service performance at your customer’s site
    

Mobile backup for existing services

One of the most requested enhancements from customers is the ability to add mobile backup to existing Ethernet Access fibre services. We are actively working on this and aim to bring it to market within the 2021 calendar year.
 

Looking ahead 

We think the combination of fibre and mobile networks can give you the opportunity to deliver a best in class offering to your customers. To date our mobile backup solution has focused on delivering service continuity in the event of an interruption to the Ethernet Access service. 

However, we are exploring interest in using mobile connectivity to help customers get their end-customers and users on the Network faster. This solution would enable customers to connect their users and customers while they await Ethernet Access fibre delivery and activation.  

It would offer a better experience for end-customers, while Telstra Wholesale customers can begin generating revenues faster, while waiting for an Ethernet Access fibre service to be provisioned.

We are currently evaluating the feasibility of this service and will have more updates to share as we go through the year.

These are just the first range of enhancements we are targeting for mobile backup. While mobile connectivity may not have the same speed or SLAs as Ethernet, the success of the Mobile Backup solution has shown that customers value having a simple, predictable and effective backup solution that gives their customers greater confidence that their business will remain online and operational, even in the unfortunate case of an outage on their tail end fibre connection.