Operating without connectivity is, for any organisation, a return to the dark ages. Backup processes might ‘work on paper’ but not practically. In Defence, lives and Australia’s safety depend on personnel, sensors, logistics and equipment staying connected.
What matters is whether a site has backup links that survive the outage.
Coverage across a whole base and beyond
On-base connectivity is often assumed to be solved, because bases have Wi-Fi. In practice, that may reach only around 20 per cent of people on a base at any moment.
The parade ground, the flight line and the vehicle compound sit beyond a network designed primarily for buildings.
However, mobile network technology is ideal for large sites that need signal through steel racking and stock. Vocus builds private, standalone 4G and 5G networks that provide blanket coverage of entire bases.
Vocus can also provide access to the licenced radio spectrum these networks need.
Staff and visitors don’t need to swap SIM cards – base admin can simply provision a Defence eSIM to a phone quickly and easily.
Operating beyond the reach of fibre
Defence needs connectivity far beyond the reach of fibre. Forward operating bases, deployed units and remote installations need the same private connectivity as a site connected by fibre, including overseas.
Low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite provides the global coverage but in its retail form sends traffic over the internet – an unacceptable threat surface for Defence operations.
Vocus has a strategic relationship with LEO satellite constellations and is the first digital infrastructure provider in the world to build an end-to-end private network over land and LEO satellite networks.
This private connection can be delivered through multiple orbits and satellite operators, providing resilience against any one network failing or being attacked.
This private network does not run over the public internet, so traffic moves from the base to the chosen satellite constellation and down to land again entirely within a Defence private network.
That means a deployed unit can operate anywhere in the world while still being connected to the internal Defence network, with the same access and security policies as a PC on a desk in a base.
What carries the traffic beyond the site
Wireless and satellite still depend on land-based infrastructure, and those connections are where shared dependencies can hide. Two contracts with two suppliers can still resolve to one cable, one line card or one data centre common to both.
Confirming the difference means tracing the physical route of each service, not reading the service description on the contract.
Vocus operates 51,000 kilometres of fibre as a resilient ‘figure of eight’ across the continent – the network is physically laid out like a number ‘8’ lying on its side across Australia, with a western loop and an eastern loop, intersecting in the middle.
For Defence, three key capabilities can be provided by Vocus: fibre connectivity to around 90 per cent of key Defence sites, private satellite connectivity across multiple orbits and operators, and private mobile network coverage across entire bases and in field.
Vocus is investing billions of dollars in land-based, sub-sea and wireless infrastructure programs for Australia. It holds Information Security Manual accreditation and Defence Industry Security Program certification, and serves more than 25 Commonwealth agencies.
For more information about Vocus defence communications capabilities:
Email: defence@vocus.com.au
Phone: 1800 167 527
Web: vocus.com.au/defence
