AirBridge Group's Doug Stephens
Cairns-based AirBridge Group has secured its first RingCentral project with construction and property development business MiHaven.
As part of the project, MiHaven used AirBridge’s connectivity and consulting services, along with migrating to RingCentral Office Premium which features messaging, video and phone (MVP) capabilities. MiHaven also provides registered training facilities and student accommodation services.
While evaluating RingCentral Office as an alternative to its current PBX telephony service, the company experienced extensive flooding within its Cairns headquarters due to a burst pipe.
This saw MiHaven move to a temporary office space and staff work remotely. Not long afterwards, COVID-19 restrictions came into effect, further speeding up the company’s switch to its new cloud communications system set up within days.
“We wanted a communications system that would stand the test of time, and wasn’t based on fixed line communication. With RingCentral, if we have to move or add new locations or work from home, we don’t have to worry about it anymore,” MiHaven director James Mort said.
“We ordered the RingCentral Office licences and Yealink handsets, and our in-house IT manager was able to set it all up quickly and easily. We were fully operational within a couple of days, with most of our staff working from home and everyone connected via RingCentral.”
MiHaven is also in the process of constructing its first specialist disability accommodation property, aiming to cater for specific client needs fitting them out with home automation technologies, connectivity and communications, where it will continue to use RingCentral services.
Along with securing MiHaven as its first RingCentral customer in Far North Queensland, AirBridge has also taken part in the RingCentral Channel Harmony partner program. AirBridge Group is made up of AirBridge Networks (network design and construction); TerreCom (enterprise network managed services) and Boots on Ground (labour and installation services).
AirBridge provides numerous services and solutions for many industries spanning mining, defence, healthcare and to more than 25 regional councils.
AirBridge Group CEO and managing director Doug Stephens said the company had grown the past four years, and in the long term, it would like to make a play in the managed service provider space. Along its business journey so far, it identified gaps within the telephony space.
“Previously fully featured telephony and UCaaS [unified communications as-a-service] solutions were highly dependent on low latency, high-speed networks that had a lot of technical attributes, but RingCentral’s offering just required an internet connection,” Stephens said.
“RingCentral is an important piece of the puzzle, delivering unified communications anywhere there is an Internet connection. Now, we are no longer reliant on specialist telecommunications services to deliver high quality messaging, voice and video.”
AirBridge has previously worked with MiHaven in providing an AirBridge solution to offer connectivity to a new facility and from that, it grew into a managed WiFi and switching engagement.
“This was their next logical progression as we went down their technology roadmap with them,” Stephens said. “We’re a networking house, we’ve all got a good understanding of networking, but none of us has really played in the UCaaS space, so it forced us to upskill and do some technical, engineering and sales training.
“We were able to clearly articulate the value proposition to MiHaven, that made it a very compelling and quick sales cycle.”
Stephens said the scale of its RingCentral partnership was yet to be fully realised, and was embarking on forging strategic partnerships with other players to develop managed services for server, PC and managed switching and network environments.
“We’re very committed to regional Australia and we’re looking at procuring our own aircraft and air services for building towers and getting to destinations that are typically difficult to get into,” he said.
“We’re entertaining the idea of buying drones to lift tower sections and mount equipment on for our line of sight surveys, anything that has to do with making our technicians lives easier, and safer, is a focus for us.”
Stephens shared some insights into servicing remote areas such as speaking with Aboriginal elders about the lands it was traversing, and not being able to put its transmission gear on towers because eagles were building nests and hatching babies.
