Remote Australia is a major drawcard for travelers looking to disconnect and recharge. But to run technical operations, that asset of remoteness also creates many logistical problems that have been difficult to solve — until now.
The launch of satellite internet provider Starlink has been operationally transformative for Journey Beyond, one of Australia’s premier destination tourism companies, and it’s driving a new era of progress and innovation. “When Starlink came, the game changed,” explains Madhumita Mazumdar, GM of ICT at Journey Beyond. “We went from accessing 1mbps to 250mbps in some locations. And even when we’re only getting 100 or 150mbps, that’s significant.”
Mazumdar joined the company six years ago during a period of rapid expansion that saw the company grow from having three brands to 10 while managing the disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Journey Beyond’s biggest investment is in rail, owning and operating four luxury trains that transverse the continent. But they also run a small fleet of seaplanes, maritime vessels, ferries, pontoons, coaches, and more to deliver the best in experiential tourism.
From a technical point of view, the rapid growth brought new opportunities, but also problems and confusion. “Overnight, we acquired six solutions all doing the same thing.” Mazumdar says. “It was a challenge to support them all, especially those that were old and outdated. Some of the businesses we acquired didn’t have any internet connection at all.”
This meant there was no real-time data on operations. For example, maintenance problems had to be logged in paper form without prioritization. “You have no tracking so you don’t see a curve or what the data is telling you,” she adds. “As a result, you can’t make data-driven decisions.” From an operational point of view, they needed an overall internet solution. She says they tried VSAT, but those only provided a maximum of 8MPBs, and often just 1mbps, so the bandwidth was small, expensive, and not fit for purpose.
Enter Starlink, the satellite internet constellation owned by Space X. It announced its launch in Australia in Q1 of 2021 and focused its trial efforts in northern Victoria and southern New South Wales before spreading out across Australia with the promise of providing businesses with an alternative to costly, unreliable legacy options.
Making sales to the public on location was one of the biggest problems they needed to quickly solve. Take for example the Rottnest Express ferry in Western Australia. “On that tour, there’s patchy cellular connectivity,” she says. “The problem comes when you’re processing purchases, and you can’t take payments. Often, the crew had to wait for people to come and pay later when a connection became available. So it had a significant operational impact.”
Journey Beyond took the leap to sign up with Starlink in December 2021 as it promised low-latency performance for companies like Journey Beyond, enabling applications like voice and video conferencing, online transactions, VPN access, cloud computing, and more. And with download speeds up to 200Mbps and latency as low as 20ms, businesses trust they can run operations anywhere.
This is important when you have staff living and working on a pontoon that’s 100km offshore, for instance. “On the pontoon, our crew members and hospitality staff go out for weeks at a time,” Mazumdar says. “Previously they could maybe download some Netflix content, but now they can do much more, and talk to family and friends. Before, all we had was a Sat phone which was expensive. Now, we provide huge amounts of bandwidth so the crew is happier and we can keep them engaged on official matters. Also, comms to the crew used to take a week. Now we’re on the same platform and they see it the same day as everyone else.”
Models of efficiency
During the pandemic disruption, Journey Beyond ran a standardization project that’s left it in a much better position going forward. From running six phone and seven POS systems, they tried to consolidate and today, the company runs one standard modern platform across all brands. “The office platform and the cloud platform are 95% cloud-standardized,” Mazumdar says. “We have the same contact center solution and reservations as well. It’s taken a few years but today, they run a seamless environment across the entire business.”
They’ve also identified a lot more opportunities that were simply unavailable before the Starlink solution. For example, there are strict regulatory requirements about capturing data for people going snorkeling and scuba diving around the Great Barrier Reef. Previously, all that information was paper-based, but now they’re digitizing the whole process. “In case of an event and a claim, we see how we can make people’s experience easier and more comfortable,” she says.
Mazumdar advises up-and-coming CIOs that they need to get immersed to gain deep knowledge of all aspects of the business, and from there create a roadmap. “Sure, you need to keep the lights on and put out fires as you go, but it shouldn’t be at the expense of focusing on long-term projects,” she says. “Remember you don’t need to do everything at one time.”
While Starlink has been an operational boon for Journey Beyond, the company has mixed feelings about making it available to customers. “We take people to amazing locations and we want them to be there and experience that,” says Mazumdar. “You don’t want them sitting on their phones in these incredible places. People are there to enjoy, stop, breathe, and talk to fellow travelers. Although it’s massive for us behind the scenes, we’re just not sure an internet connection will significantly improve their experience. Perhaps quite the opposite.”
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