Business communications in Bowen

Bowen is the largest winter vegetable district in Queensland. The Bowen and Gumlu growing region turns over roughly 650 million dollars farm-gate a year and can supply up to 90 percent of Australia's tomatoes and capsicums in September and October, employing about 1,500 people year round and up to 2,000 at harvest. Packing sheds, coolrooms and farm offices are spread across large sites that need cabling reaching a lot further than a single office.

It is also the home of the Kensington Pride mango, the Bowen special, which makes up more than 80 percent of Australia's commercial mango market and is marked by the Big Mango out on the highway. Add the Abbot Point coal terminal 25 kilometres north, Australia's northernmost coal export port at 50 million tonnes a year, and the Cheetham Salt works, and you have industrial and agricultural sites that all run on connectivity.

We cover Bowen on our northern coverage at three to five days, planned so a run brings everything needed in one trip. For spread-out sheds and yards we design structured data cabling and point-to-point wireless links, comms rooms, Mitel phone systems and business internet sized for an agricultural site rather than a small office. UHF two-way radios for farm and haul-out work are repaired on the bench in Mackay.

Bowen sits on a peninsula ringed by sea and salt works, so salt corrosion on external cabling, connectors and enclosures is severe and marine-grade hardware matters. It is also cyclone wind Region C, and Cyclone Debbie hit the town hard in 2017, especially older buildings, so external comms mounts get cyclonic rated fixings. The dry, sunny season from May to October is at least kinder for scheduling the longer runs.