Despite an internet connection being an essential part of our daily lives, an inferior connection is sadly far too common for remote businesses across the country.
Couple that with having to listen to hold music for what feels like hours before to speak to customer support, and the frustration is doubled – maybe even tripled.
Fortunately, thanks to Rural Connect, you can finally rid yourself and your off-grid business of substandard internet connectivity and tediously long wait time to speak to customer support.
What is Rural Connect?
Created by IPSTAR – a trusted Australian satellite company, Rural Connect is an internet connection service focused on small rural or off-grid businesses, like farms, to address the limited bandwidth problem in these areas.
But Rural Connect is more than just a stable internet connection service – the package also includes access to a dedicated and accessible customer service team.
Key Benefits of Rural Connect
1. Fast support when you need it
If you’ve dealt with a slow connection, you’ve probably also have had it with slow customer support – and rightfully so. Slow customer support means that the issue is solved just as slowly, which means further downtime.
You’ll need a dedicated and responsive support line that helps you get back into business quickly.
Our customer support is standing by between 8 AM to 8 PM Australian Eastern Standard Time to ensure that you get back online and back into business quicker. This represents about 3 hours additional support time than other providers so IPSTAR really have you covered.
2. More bandwidth and data allowance
A common issue with internet connection is that the already strained data allowance runs out regularly, and when it does, the business grinds to a halt when the internet is no longer available.
On the other hand, Rural Connect offers a data allowance of up to 150 GB – of which only video streaming and VPN count towards.
This means that you don’t burn through your data bandwidth on essential tasks like sending emails and browsing the web.
3. Reliable connectivity
In talking about the challenges that rural businesses face, Shannon Fisher, Managing Director of IPSTAR says, “What we’ve seen is that many farms are just getting by with an outdated solution that doesn’t keep up with the fast growth of technology.”
And with the rate of agtech adoption, many businesses are discovering that what worked before doesn’t work any longer. “With your internet service provider, it’s about finding a solution not just for the moment, but that you can scale as your needs grow.”
Not sure which Rural Connect package is right for you?
There are two major offerings, at present, with more to come. The most significant difference between the regular Connect and Rural Connect Ultra packages is that Rural Connect Ultra offers 100-1000GB of data per month.
As such, it’s more suitable for multi-site businesses. The Rural Connect Ultra package also includes a static IP address.
Don’t just take our word for it – hear it from our customers
Use case #1: Connectivity helps with mental health in tough times on a NSW Stud Farm
Out on a stud farm in rural NSW, the staff had trouble staying in touch with friends and family back home, mainly because they often ran out of data limits.
To boost morale and protect the mental wellbeing of their employees, the stud management had to find a better solution – which had to be capable of handling both video calls and streaming services.
After a rapid implementation of Rural Connect, the staff at the farm could make more and lengthier calls to friends and family, which had immediate positive effects.
Educating remote customers in a Northern Territory community centre
In the Northern Territory, a local community centre was looking for a replacement to an outdated solution, which struggled to handle more than one logged-in user at a time and dropped out regularly.
Rural Connect particularly appealed to the community centre because of the unmetered data for video calls since the connectivity was a problem even outside of the centre itself.
Boutique ski resort gets the support and connectivity needed
For a while, a boutique hotel in a popular ski resort in NSW had relied on an outdated connection solution.
But since this solution handled everything from guest WiFi to business management, they often reached their data limits, which caused the service to slow down.
The hotel owners mainly chose Rural Connect since the bandwidth of the new solution was only used up by streaming services and VPN use.
“We have several challenges when it comes to our connection, but we had been getting by with an older solution for some time. When I spoke to IPSTAR it was obvious they worked with customers like us. Their understanding of the issues we had was impressive. Now, even if we hit our metered data cap, business can continue without getting bogged down with a slow and dodgy service” IPSTAR boutique ski resort Rural Connect user.
For this remote small business, the service provider support that they needed was the key to overcoming the obstacles presented by poor connectivity.
You can read more about all these stories in the user case study guide here.
Experiencing similar problems?
Do you run out of your connection data limit quickly and frequently, like the NSW stud farm? Or perhaps you’re looking to replace an outdated solution, like the NSW boutique hotel?
Take the opportunity by upgrading to Rural Connect today or find out more.
