Macquarie Telecom has announced being chosen to deploy software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN) services for Hall & Prior Aged Care in a bid to make it easier for the organisation to develop, deploy, and maintain digital services.
The SD-WAN service will allow for new audio and video conferencing solutions across the aged care provider's facilities in New South Wales and Western Australia, which Macquarie Telecom said would enable the company to "communicate more effectively and trial extra services to care recipients".
Of Hall & Prior's 25 nursing homes and two home care services, 80 percent have been transitioned to SD-WAN services, with the remaining 20 percent either under way or awaiting National Broadband Network (NBN) connectivity.
"Digital voice and video services are the way of the future in our industry. We needed a platform that enabled us to deploy these services in a way that was reliable, secure, and benefited our care providers and recipients," Hall & Prior Aged Care ICT infrastructure manager Dan Beeston said.
"We're now moving towards a fully centralised model for voice and video services across all sites. We were hesitant about doing this under our former MPLS technology, as those networks were already constrained. However, the trials with SD-WAN have proven successful."
Hall & Prior is now also developing a guest Wi-Fi platform alongside social media and teleconferencing capabilities as part of what it hopes will "reduce social isolation among care recipients in a digital age".
Macquarie Telecom earlier this month revealed that its half-year revenue growth[1] of 8 percent and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) growth of 18 percent were saved by hosting and datacentres.
The carrier's telco business EBITDA dropped by