Dark fibre & WAN · Manufacturing
Dark fibre connects a steel factory to its office 19 km away
Large production files crawled across an NBN VPN, and wireless was not an option. We connected the laser steel cutting factory and head office with dedicated Vocus dark fibre.
Download PDF
- 10 Gbps
- dedicated dark fibre between sites
- 19 km
- private fibre span
- 250 Mbps
- symmetrical office internet
- HA
- WatchGuard firewall pair
Before
- The factory and office were 19 km apart with no line of sight for wireless.
- An NBN VPN was too slow for large laser cutting and CNC files.
- Production machines accessing office servers experienced delays and re-work.
- The office relied on one internet connection without firewall redundancy.
After
- A dedicated 10 Gbps dark fibre link between the two sites.
- A private fibre span covering 19 km.
- Office internet upgraded to 250 Mbps symmetrical service.
- WatchGuard firewalls installed as a high-availability pair.
A direct link for production files
We surveyed the route and coordinated with Vocus to provision dedicated dark fibre between the office and factory. This provided a high-capacity path where a wireless link was not possible.
The office internet upgrade and redundant WatchGuard firewalls complemented the private link, supporting production file transfers and access to office servers.
“Before the fibre went in we were planning shifts around file download times. Now the machines grab the next job before the operator is even at the console.”