Customer stories

[Title] IoT-based aquaculture to delivering equal opportunities for all students across South Australia

[Carol Hille speaking] Can you see that pink rainbow stripe going down the side, real characteristic of a Rainbow Trout isn’t it?

[Boy speaking] Yeah. 

[Text on screen] Carol Hille, Senior Agriculture Teacher, Lucindale Area School.

[Carol Hille speaking] We have an aquaculture program here, at Lucindale Area School. It involves a couple of different stages. We get eggs in from Tasmania in June each year and we then carry them through and grow them out to adult stage. 

[Text on screen] Dan Hughes, Chief Information Officer of the Department for Education SA.

[Dan Hughes speaking] We want to ensure that we are providing equal opportunities for every student in every classroom through the use of technologies. So, in the Department for Education here in South Australia, we’re focused on building digital literacy for our students and our staff. 

[Text on screen] Chris Barry, Senior Business Engagement Officer, Department of Education S.A.

[Chris Barry speaking] So we got a great group of schools together from all areas of the state to start working with Telstra and Verge Solutions on a proof of concept for Internet of Things (IoT) sensors in their school’s aquaculture setups. 

[Carol Hille speaking] Right, so what I want you guys to consider today obviously dissolved oxygen, pH, temperature, ammonia, and nitrate levels. Some of the barriers that we had before the sensors came in was really mainly the water quality monitoring. We found it was really time-consuming, using chemical analysis to do the sensing. The educational outcomes of having the data are huge. And students are very passionate about wanting to use tools that are technologically based. The temperature does affect the levels of the dissolved oxygen as it tracks over the 24-hour period. 

[Text on screen] Logan Whitford, Student, Lucindale Area School.

[Logan Whitford speaking] Now we’ve got 24/7 live data that we can look at and be able to compare that to our fish growth. We learn a lot from that. And we also learn a lot from this new technology that’s been really good to actually see all that. 

[Dan Hughes speaking] I feel like we’re in a position where we can explore more, we can innovate more. The approach that Telstra Purple took to this particular project, certainly took a lot of conversation and repivoting and rethinking, but that was the beauty of the relationship, is Telstra were willing to do that through the process.

[Text on screen] Digitally enabling students and teachers across South Australia.

[Telstra logo]  

[Telstra Purple logo]  

[Text on screen] Uplifting connectivity above and beyond

[Text on screen] Telstra Satellite Services

[PHILIP REID, Acting General Manager, Norfolk Island Regional Council] Norfolk Island is a very small island in the middle of the Pacific. Small population of around 2,200 people and it has a very, very interesting history with multiple settlements over a number of centuries now. And it's what makes Norfolk Islanders very proud of who they are.

[Text on screen] Norfolk Island Foundation Day re-enactment

[PHILIP REID] So the challenge with being an external territory is certainly remoteness. The ability to be able to stay connected.

The Commonwealth Government needed to improve connectivity to the school and to the hospital. And they turned to Norfolk Island Regional Council to be able to support that through one of our business units, which is Norfolk Telecom.

[SIMON PEAPELL, Team Leader, Norfolk Telecom] If you're like us and you’re unfortunate not to have an undersea cable, you’re very dependent on satellite connectivity.

Prior to the upgrade there was a lot of intermittent issues with dropouts and high latency. The service wasn't really up to scratch. 

[PHILIP REID] Online learning resources were at times just unable to be delivered to students. And that's a huge improvement now that they're seamless. Students can have the same quality, the same standards that you would expect from schools on the mainland.

[LIZ UNKLES, Manager, Noffolk Island Health & Residential Aged Care Service] Norfolk Island Health and Residential Aged Care Service is the only health service on Island. We are rated as extremely rural and remote. And so to get access to anything other than primary health and the services that we provide, it historically has been a trip off Island.

[Voice from video call on screen] Can I just get you to stand up. 

[LIZ UNKLES] Good, consistent video connectivity means those people remain on island for at least initial appointments so it's really added to the ability to provide complex and coordinated care without a patient travelling.

[IAN HURTLEY, Client Partner – Government, Telstra] So the solution we provided to the island was a multi-level satellite solution that incorporated geostationary satellites, a medium Earth orbit, and we've also catered for future stuff which is what we call Low Earth Orbit, LEO.

Telstra provides a managed service to support the entire solution. It wasn't an out of the box solution, it was something that needed to be designed to be fit for purpose for the island. 

[SIMON PEAPELL] The solution is clever in that we're able to take the bandwidth that's allocated specifically for health and education, and at times when health and education aren’t using that, we're able to reuse it for our mobile network and domestic internet services on the Island.

[PHILIP REID] It is a scalable solution. Working with Telstra means that we're able to consider different options working as closely as we can with the community on what their needs are when it comes to the economy and when it comes to connectivity.

[Telstra logo] 

[Text on screen] telstrainternational.com

[Text on screen] Telstra logo and Telstra Purple logo.

[PENNY GRIFFIN, Project Manager, Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development, WA speaking] It's an amazing experience. If you've never seen a total eclipse, it's really worth doing. It's totally spooky at the point of totality. There's a shadow that races across the land, all the birds go quiet. It's really amazing, actually. Really amazing.

[Text on screen] Courtesy time and date.com. Courtesy Michael Goh.

[MATT WOODS, Tour Administrator, Perth Observatory speaking] In April of 2023, a celestial wonder happens, a total solar eclipse occurs where the moon moves in front of the sun. Day becomes night, the best place to be able to see it was Exmouth. We needed to go up there and live-stream that so the rest of the world could see it, not just those people on the North West Cape.

[MATT WOODS speaking] Guys we're coming to near totality. So this is our set-up over here.

[PENNY GRIFFIN speaking] Exmouth had the highest probability of clear skies, but it's a tiny little place. It's a very narrow peninsula, very remote from anywhere, one road in, one road out. And so the thought of having another potentially another 40 odd thousand people pour in, it needed a response for a resilient telecommunications network to help government deliver the range of services that it needed to provide.

[Text on screen] Courtesy Beam Me Up Media.

[PENNY GRIFFIN speaking] Telstra was actually a terrific partner. There were three elements really to the communications challenge. One was to boost the mobile network, one was provide public Wi-Fi, and then there was the live-stream to the international audience.

[MATT WOODS speaking] Yeah so, we were able to have a meeting with Telstra Purple that was set up by the state government departments. Telstra was like, “Basically what do you need?” And we gave them the bare minimum and they said, “Okay, what would you like to do?” And I was like, “Okay I really hadn’t thought that far”. I was like, that's awesome.

[STEFFEN THORSEN, CEO, Time and Date speaking] We have estimated about 100 million people were able to see the images in some way. One of the biggest concerns going somewhere is if you can get a good internet connection. To go halfway around world and then actually knowing it will be taking care of, well, that was great.

[PENNY GRIFFIN speaking] There hasn't been another hybrid eclipse in Australia for 2000 years. Yeah. You're just standing at exactly the right spot to witness this amazing event. Exmouth was showcased to a truly global audience and I think we can be proud of that.

[text on screen] Connecting stargazers to remote Western Australia.

[Telstra Logo]

[Telstra Purple Logo]

[TELSTRA LOGO]

[TEXT ON SCREEN] JOHN HOLLAND. TOGETHER BUILDS BETTER. 

 [PEGGY RENDERS Chief Customer Officer, Telstra Enterprise] Astro is more than a robot dog. He's actually a frontline safety partner. He goes where it's just too dangerous to send people to. 
 
[STEVE BUTCHER, Managing Director, Rail and Transport, John Holland] We do lots of rail tunnels, we do lots of work in confined spaces, we do lots of work around hazardous areas. One of the areas we wanted to look at is how do get data, how do we get it safely, and how do we then maximise that data? But we also wanted to do it with a partner that was like minded.

[PEGGY RENDERS] So you first need to get great minds together in a room to think about the art of the possible.

[STEVE BUTCHER] And Telstra was just a perfect partner to be able to work forward. We had a problem, we had a challenge. Telstra had some technology. 

[PEGGY RENDERS] So first of all it's the robotics, but also it's enabled by 5G. Stable, reliable and real time transmission back to the crew on land. 

[STEVE BUTCHER] So therefore Astro the dog can get in there, they can get the information and then we can analyse it remotely. So it actually keeps people out of the danger zone in terms of going in there in the first place. 

[PEGGY RENDERS] This is just a great example of Australian innovation in action. John Holland, Telstra and Ericom collaborating together to solve real world problems with new technology. 

[STEVE BUTCHER] And the beauty of it is, we went on the journey together. We're still on that journey and the real exciting part is, is that we don't actually know how far this can go. 

[MUSIC] Together builds better, wherever we go.

[TEXT ON SCREEN] Enterprise sized solutions.

[TELSTRA LOGO]