Case study:We service a large local and international member base, and the NBN has enabled us to do this in a way that is innovative and extremely efficient
Simon Pryor
Mathematical Association of Victoria
“Curriculum no longer stops at the border. We need to reach our members where they live and work. We’ve often been challenged by poor rural and regional internet connections. We tried our best to service our rural and regional members, but compared to their city cousins, they really did miss out. Now with the NBN, we’re able to offer services to reach the far corners of the country,” said Simon Pryor FSAE, Chief Executive Officer, Mathematical Association of Victoria.
The Mathematical Association of Victoria (MAV) is a membership driven association that provides a voice, leadership and professional support for mathematical education. The association aims to promote mathematics, mathematics education, and its importance to society via programs and services. MAV has over 10,600 members from all sectors of education, and has been an active non-profit professional association for over 100 years.
MAV is a Victorian based organisation that services members all over the country, and required an internet connection that allowed it to efficiently service members in rural, regional and metropolitan Australia.
"The transition process from our old connection to the NBN by iiNet was very quick and efficient."
“Internet speed via the NBN means we are able to deliver professional development workshops to our members via a robust and reliable video conferencing link that doesn’t break up or is prone to dropping out or fading. It has really made a huge difference to the way we work. It is very efficient for teachers to login remotely and virtually attend our workshops,” added Simon.
The Mathematical Association of Victoria was the first business in the Brunswick area to have the NBN installed.
“We jumped at the idea of being the first in the area to be connected to the NBN. The transition process from our old connection to the NBN by iiNet was very quick and efficient.
“The difference for us, in terms of what we’re able to deliver our members is a quantum leap. The NBN gives us the opportunity to explore more elaborate and sophisticated content. Traditionally our offerings have been face-to-face, now we can think differently about content delivery,” said Simon.
This is the first year in the over 100 year history of the MAV it has officially offered professional courses via video conferencing. The NBN has given MAV the confidence to diversify and expand the depth of services it offers their members.
“Often teachers in rural and remote areas find it difficult to attend professional development workshops – it means travel, overnight stays and someone to cover their classes. Now, with reliable video conferencing our members can easily access workshops and expand their knowledge base.” added Simon.
“Constantly innovating and improving the services and products we provide our members, is what we’re all about, and the speed and reliability of iiNet’s NBN service makes this possible more than ever before.”
The next challenge for the MAV is that while staff and many of their members are enjoying the benefits of the speed brought on by the NBN, some members still have slow and inadequate internet services.
“We want to encourage our members utilise high speed internet whenever and where ever possible because it would mean our services will reach at an incredible level of speed at both ends. No more frustration waiting for large files to download on a slow connection,” added Simon.
With the help of iiNet and the NBN in place, MAV can and plan and develop its virtual services, all enabled by blistering speed and a connection that never breaks down. Another example of this is how successfully it is running inter-office branch meetings using video conferences.
“Many of our member schools have a service that’s been rolled out by the Victorian Government Education Department – and have a video conferencing solution supplied by Polycom. We find that we’re able to easily link with Polycom facilities, making for very productive meetings,” added Simon.
MAV has noticed significant business benefits and improvements since installing the NBN with iiNet’s support.
“iiNet’s NBN connection enables us to host our own web servers – something we weren’t able to do before. Our main website is hosted in the U.S., but we have a complex Customer Management System that holds volumes of data. We wanted to drive the system from our office, and respond to any issues or problems on site. The NBN allows us the capacity and the grunt to manage this ourselves and at much faster speeds. Our NBN connection really has transformed the way we run the association,” said Simon.
“We service a large local and international member base, and the NBN has enabled us to do this in a way that is innovative and extremely efficient,” concluded Simon.