Ask what the address can actually do
NBN speed tiers are what the plan sells; what the line delivers depends on the technology at the address. We check the address first and tell you the tier it can hold, and if the honest answer is that a fixed-wireless site will not carry a 500 Mbps plan, you hear it before you sign. New developments may carry a $300 NBN new-development fee, which we pass on at cost.
Ask what happens when it drops
Every line drops. The question is whether the tills, the phones and the EFTPOS stay up. BE Internet ships the router with a 4G backup already configured; failover takes seconds, we test it nightly, and the event is logged: "primary dropped for 2 min 10 s; tills stayed on the backup". Backup internet explains the options, including a second fixed line for sites that cannot be down.
Ask who is watching the router
A router in a cupboard that nobody monitors is a line that fails silently. Ours are supplied pre-configured, monitored, patched and alerted on from the same desk that runs the voice network, so when a site drops someone already knows. Router management.
Ask about the phones
Voice over a congested line sounds like voice over a congested line. Call quality is shaped on the router we supply, so BE Voice calls keep priority when the office is pulling a large download. If your phone system is from someone else, the same shaping applies to its traffic.
Ask about more than one site
Private site-to-site links join offices, warehouses and clinics without the public internet in the middle, so a file server in Port Melbourne and a till in Dandenong talk as if they were on one network. Private site-to-site.
What we publish and what we quote
NBN plans are on a 12-month term and depend on the address, so we quote per site rather than print a plan table that would be wrong for half of Melbourne. What we do publish is on the BE Network catalogue: trunks, numbers and the fees. Tell us the sites and we come back with what the NBN can do there, what the backup should be, and a price.
Questions people ask
Do I get a static IP?
Yes, on request, for VPNs, cameras and anything that needs to be found from outside.
Can I keep my current provider for the line and just take the router?
Yes. Router management is sold on its own; the backup and the voice shaping work on any NBN line.
Is 000 affected by an outage?
NBN relies on mains power. Keep a mobile for 000 calls during a power outage; the backup link covers the internet, not the power.