Australian software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) provider Macquarie Telecom rolled out its VeloCloud-based SD-WAN at 22 Hall & Prior nursing home locations.

The aged care provider has 25 nursing homes and two home care services across Western Australia and New South Wales. Hall & Prior required a network that would enable its residents to communicate with family and distribute digital voice and digital services to them.

As the care provider grew and opened new locations, it wanted to develop a WiFi platform to provide its customers with teleconferencing and social media to reduce social isolation within its homes.

Prior to the Macquarie deployment, Hall & Prior used MPLS technology and a number of providers to manage its network. Additionally, as the company is running multiple remote connections in two countries across the globe from each other, deploying hardware and software at new sites was complex and time consuming. Network downtime also had large effects on the business.

The Macquarie SD-WAN rollout used existing links to provide a multi-path architecture. Each of the 22 sites has two independent data links. The links are provided as either dual National Broadband Network (NBN) — an Australian telecommunication infrastructure — links, Ethernet first mile (EFM) broadband and NBN, or existing Ethernet links paired with NBN.

This makes the network connection at its sites faster as well as more reliable and consistent for the residents.

While SD-WAN service has been deployed at 80 percent of Hall & Prior’s sites, it’s planning to roll out the service to the remaining sites pending NBN availability at the locations.

Last year, Macquarie Telecom selected VeloCloud SD-WAN technology to supplement its MPLS network offerings. At the time, its group executive Luke Clifton said the SD-WAN offering was built to give enterprise customers extra bandwidth and network control to gain sufficient access to connectivity.

The Australia government is in the process of replacing its copper connectivity with NBN. The network is offered via wholesale to as many as 14 resellers.

Macquarie offers the VeloCloud appliance and bundles connectivity options for broadband, Ethernet, DSL, 4G, LTE, and MPLS.