Case Study: Small business - increasing international competitiveness
Digital media studio saves time and money
David Gurney
Director, Blue Rocket Productions
Blue Rocket Productions, based in Hobart, is a creative digital media studio that produces animation and interactive media for television, online and mobile. The studio's television programs have been broadcast in more than 120 countries and its mobile content is sold through over 40 carriers worldwide.
Blue Rocket works with partners from all over the world to promote and sell its programs. Many of its international partners have access to much higher broadband speeds than are widely available in large parts of Australia at present.
Director David Gurney believes high-speed broadband access is essential to remain competitive.
"We work with partners in Monaco, Los Angeles and Germany, which means we need to move a lot of programs and files around the world very quickly. It's an essential part of the business," said David.
"A lot of the partners we're dealing with operate with massive broadband connections as standard and expect us to work with the same technologies at the same speed they do."
"We're running ADSL2+ at the moment and experiencing comparatively slow broadband speeds. The speeds quoted by our service provider are only the theoretical maximum rate and if you monitor what we're actually getting it's nothing like that. It can be very, very slow which is frustrating when you're dealing with overseas partners that take high-speed broadband as a given."
When connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN), Blue Rocket hopes to be able to share files and collaborate with international partners in real time, improving its ability to compete on a global scale.
Blue Rocket works with partners from all over the world to promote and sell its programs. Many of its international partners have access to much higher broadband speeds than are widely available in large parts of Australia at present.
Director David Gurney believes high-speed broadband access is essential to remain competitive.
"We work with partners in Monaco, Los Angeles and Germany, which means we need to move a lot of programs and files around the world very quickly. It's an essential part of the business," said David.
"A lot of the partners we're dealing with operate with massive broadband connections as standard and expect us to work with the same technologies at the same speed they do."
"We're running ADSL2+ at the moment and experiencing comparatively slow broadband speeds. The speeds quoted by our service provider are only the theoretical maximum rate and if you monitor what we're actually getting it's nothing like that. It can be very, very slow which is frustrating when you're dealing with overseas partners that take high-speed broadband as a given."
When connected to the National Broadband Network (NBN), Blue Rocket hopes to be able to share files and collaborate with international partners in real time, improving its ability to compete on a global scale.
ADSL2+ dwarfed by international speeds
David has experienced many instances in the past where the business' broadband connection has fallen short of what's available internationally and receiving files has become cumbersome and time consuming.
"A couple of years ago, a studio in Vancouver wanted to move thirteen hours of high-definition video backwards and forwards to us for editing. Taking the unedited footage into consideration, we were looking at about 1 gigabyte of data for every minute of programming. I was stunned because I knew we didn't have anything close to the bandwidth we needed. To work with that partner required a connection with much greater capacity than ADSL2+. This is why fibre is so interesting to us."
David also faces the challenge of physically backing-up the large amount of data the business receives and produces every day.
"A couple of years ago, a studio in Vancouver wanted to move thirteen hours of high-definition video backwards and forwards to us for editing. Taking the unedited footage into consideration, we were looking at about 1 gigabyte of data for every minute of programming. I was stunned because I knew we didn't have anything close to the bandwidth we needed. To work with that partner required a connection with much greater capacity than ADSL2+. This is why fibre is so interesting to us."
David also faces the challenge of physically backing-up the large amount of data the business receives and produces every day.
"We need serious bandwidth at a cost effective price, and we believe that's what the National Broadband Network is going to do for us."
David Gurney, Director, Blue Rocket Productions
"At the moment we are running a large IBM robotic tape library. We do massive back-ups each night and cart arm fulls of tape offsite. Through the NBN we envisage we'll be able to move to a cloud computing model where we can store data on a remote server and not have to carry physical tapes around. This would save us time and hassle," he said.
High-speed broadband brings new opportunities
Through the NBN David's team is expected to save hours every week sending and receiving files and backing-up. Add to this the new business opportunities when the company can compete on an equal footing with its international peers and the business case for switching to the high-speed NBN is compelling.
"We're really excited about the NBN roll-out because depending on the package we sign up to we could operate in real time with our partners overseas and exchange large files rapidly. We're talking 24 minute long episodes of high definition video sent across the world in real time, which on our current ADSL2+ connection could take more than 30 hours to download or 11 days per episode to upload!"
"We need serious bandwidth at a cost-effective price to facilitate this and we believe that's what the NBN is going to do for us."
David also sees the rise of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), the internet-based TV service where viewers can choose what they want to watch and when, changing the media landscape.
"We're heading towards an environment where the internet can deliver meaningful content rapidly to anyone, anywhere. It's seriously changing the traditional media landscape and opening up a lot of opportunities," he said.
"For us as producers it's going to be a different space in a few years time and we've got to be ready."
"We're really excited about the NBN roll-out because depending on the package we sign up to we could operate in real time with our partners overseas and exchange large files rapidly. We're talking 24 minute long episodes of high definition video sent across the world in real time, which on our current ADSL2+ connection could take more than 30 hours to download or 11 days per episode to upload!"
"We need serious bandwidth at a cost-effective price to facilitate this and we believe that's what the NBN is going to do for us."
David also sees the rise of Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), the internet-based TV service where viewers can choose what they want to watch and when, changing the media landscape.
"We're heading towards an environment where the internet can deliver meaningful content rapidly to anyone, anywhere. It's seriously changing the traditional media landscape and opening up a lot of opportunities," he said.
"For us as producers it's going to be a different space in a few years time and we've got to be ready."
Summary
Company/Individual: Blue Rocket Productions, David Gurney
Location: Hobart, Tasmania
Website: www.blue-rocket.com.au
Case Study Type: Small Business
Challenge:
Opportunity:
Location: Hobart, Tasmania
Website: www.blue-rocket.com.au
Case Study Type: Small Business
Challenge:
- Inability to move large files electronically in a timely way
- Difficulty competing with other firms that have access to higher levels of bandwidth
- Inability to backup files to a remote server, relying entirely on hard medium, posing time and security challenges
Opportunity:
- NBN will provide adequate capacity to upload and download large files in real time
- Access to affordable bandwidth will place business on equal footing to compete internationally
- Increasing upload capacity to backup files will reduce costs and improve risk management for disaster recovery
Case study for small business - increasing international competitiveness
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