The NBN has so far been a “very detrimental” development for local Cloud provider, BitCloud, according to CEO, Bennet Oprysa, who bases his opinion on seeing telcos end the development of their own infrastructure in the wake of the NBN being announced.
To illustrate his point, Oprysa highlights how AAPT, which the Cloud backup vendor uses as one of our providers, was continually rolling out and adding new exchanges to their Internet infrastructure.
“However, as soon as the NBN gained momentum all of that stopped,” he said.
“They are not adding new capacity anymore but waiting to be brought out by the NBN.”
For Oprysa, this has been problematic because areas that would potentially have had access to high speed Internet do not.
“Hopefully things will move on and we’ll all get the NBN at some point,” he said.
For BitCloud, more customers would have the motivation to sign up for the provider’s Cloud services if they were connected to an Internet that is “faster, cheaper and available at all of their locations.”
For that reason, the one hurdle Oprysa sees in relation to the Cloud is related to the price of connectivity in Australia.
“You can put your stuff in the Cloud, but the best way to use the Cloud is if you have a good, high speed connection,” he said.
While Oprysa admits that the situation is “improving slightly,” but adds that it is by “not much.”
“In areas where there is good connectivity available, it is often serviced by Telstra or Optus, and their pricing is a bit high and not really competitive,” he said.
Past challenges
Up until recently, Oprysa said there were a number of issues that held back Cloud backup in Australia.
There were security issues, lack of proven local providers, various costs, as well as IT departments worried about change.
However, Oprysa has seen a lot of those issues change or disappear over the last four or five years.
“IT departments have also had the opportunity to give a Cloud offering a try and become more comfortable with it,” he said.
More commonly, a business has decided to adopt the Cloud after a competitor or somebody they know has already been on the Cloud.
“We’re no longer seeing the same amount of repulsion or fear that was present in the earlier years, and that’s a significant change,” he said.
Patrick Budmar covers consumer and enterprise technology breaking news for IDG Communications. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_budmar.