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Members, please remember our end-of-year embargo period is nearing. It runs from Friday 23 December 2022 to Sunday 8 January 2023 (inclusive). During this time we will not be provisioning any new services or changing existing services. Rest assured, support staff will be on call if any urgent issues or network emergencies arise. Any orders or change requests need to be submitted by Friday 9 December 2022.

In celebration of WA-IX’s 25 years, we take a look back to the beginning and the pioneers advocating for the interests of the WA Internet community. One of these advocates was Harry Protoolis, who attended that very first meeting of the Western Australian Internet Association (WAIA) in 1995. WA-IX formed 2 years later. 

Devastatingly, Harry is no longer with us. He was killed aged 38 in a light-plane crash in Perth on August 11 2003. He and his work colleagues from Fremantle technology company Nautronix Pty Ltd were flying to the west of Rottnest Island to test new communications systems over the ocean. The plane crashed minutes after take-off from Jandakot Airport, where Harry died on impact and Steven Warriner lost his life a couple of months after from injuries sustained in the crash. The pilot and three other passengers survived.

When Harry died the world lost an incredibly intelligent man, the Internet industry lost a leader and his family lost someone really special. In a tragic twist of fate, Harry was not meant to be on the plane that day. Harry’s sister Eleni del Pino recalls that someone from Nautronix had called in sick, so Harry took their place. Also, the pilot Alec Penberthy wasn’t scheduled to fly. The original pilot had used up his flying hours, so Alec had stepped in at the last minute.  

Eleni remembers Harry fondly, describing her six-foot and four-inch-tall brother as a ‘package deal’. She notes when someone dies they are spoken about as being special, but in Harry’s case he really was someone quite remarkable. She says often computer enthusiasts are socially awkward, but not Harry. ‘His Greek upbringing rounded him out,’ she says. ‘He was brilliant and quick, socially comfortable, and with a great sense of humour. Very articulate also, with a voice that carried without any effort.’ Others remembered him as ‘goofy’ and ‘good natured’. 

Harry was 17 months younger than Eleni; their parents, who had both emigrated separately from Greece and met in Perth, had 5 children – all of them girls apart from Harry. The siblings went to Balga Primary School, then Balga Senior High School. It was at high school that Harry came into his own. He was an all-round high achiever who loved learning and represented the school in an English public-speaking competition. Eleni said he was a fish out of water among the ‘geeky’ boys. ‘He was good fun, active in the Greek community,’ she says. ‘There for everybody and anyone.’  

Eleni recalls a conversation she’d had with Harry, where he’d mentioned he’d never had a failed project as he always spoke to the end-user of the system and assessed their needs before taking on a contract. ‘Nobody thought the way he did,’ she says. ‘Harry was decades ahead of everyone else, a visionary. He was a huge loss to the company he worked for.’ Indeed, after his death a Nautronix spokesperson stated the company had searched both nationally and internationally but was unable to find a replacement with the depth of knowledge that Harry had. His “expertise and domain knowledge was irreplaceable,” they’d said. Eleni observes it was no surprise that Harry joined IAA as he was socially conscious and wanted to use his superpowers for good. His superpowers: ‘He really understood how people and technology interact,’ she says. ‘He also had a strong presence, was really warm and creative. Harry could sell ice to the Eskimos.’ 

Carl Johnson was Harry’s best friend and attended that very first meeting of WAIA with him. Carl recalls Harry taking charge at that meeting, as he was wont to do. ‘Whatever situation was happening, Harry was in charge or contributing in some major way,’ he says. Carl first met Harry in the UK when they were both working for Sun Microsystems. Harry was over there after completing a computer science degree and working for a few years in Perth. He had lined up a job in advance at Sun Microsystems, which is where he met his future wife, the lovely Janet, who is unfortunately no longer with us either. After Harry’s death, Janet had described him as ‘larger than life’. Carl was best man at Harry and Janet’s wedding, which took place in Perth. The couple had three children, two daughters and a son who is Harry’s namesake. They are all now in their twenties and flourishing. 

Eleni says even with Harry’s tragic passing there is so much to be grateful for. When the plane crashed, he’d hit his head and didn’t suffer the fireball that had engulfed the plane. ‘It’s the living who suffer,’ she says. ‘He went out as dramatically as he lived; he did not go quietly into the night.’ 

IAA proudly joined the annual WiTWA Tech [+] Conference as silver sponsors this year. We passionately support Women in Technology WA’s mission to increase gender diversity, equity and inclusion in technology-related fields, as it aligns with our objectives too.  

Held in Perth this month, the one-day conference played host to a variety of exceptional speakers; their speeches underpinned by the same motive: to drive sustainable change in the tech community. We had a booth at the conference, where the IAA team promoted our own efforts in encouraging and supporting women. The centrepiece of our advocacy work in this area is the IAASysters program. We launched it in 2021 after wanting to do something about the low participation rates of certain sectors in the Internet industry.  

The glamorous WiTWA Tech [+] Awards followed the next evening, and several of IAA’s Perth-based team had the privilege of attending this event also. It was a memorable night for Lisa, Fatima, Sabrina, Kitty and Jemma, who had a great time celebrating the inspiring women making an incredibly important impact in tech.

If you can’t answer this question, it must mean you didn’t attend our online event and hear the incredible René Fichtmüller share his experience on building and operating a network in a war zone. But don’t worry: you can still discover what it took to Keep Ukraine Connected – we recorded it so no one would miss out. The full one-hour online session can be viewed on our Facebook page

You’ll spend a very worthy hour learning how the Keep Ukraine Connected task force came together, from planning and organising to delivering equipment. René provides insight on the infrastructure, how the task force mapped the backbone data lines, the supply and demand tool used to determine the equipment needed to keep communications going, and so much more.

Watch it today, you won’t regret it!

We achieved an aggregate peak data flow of over 500 Gbps across NSW-IX. This occurred on Wednesday 16 November when Call of Duty: Warzone 2 was released on Steam – the game data was served to members from our Steam content caches.  

IAA has never had that much traffic across NSW-IX (or indeed any single IX) in our history. Not bad for our second-youngest IX, which is already our largest by data volume. 

It’s great news for members as it’s further evidence that getting data via settlement-free peering means a massive reduction in expenditure on internet-transit costs.

While we’re sure we would all like to pretend that the telecommunications sector’s participation and compliance with the Consumer Data Right (CDR) won’t be mandatory, that’s far from the truth.  

According to the draft rules, telcos with at least 30,000 services in operation will be subject to the scheme with smaller telcos able to elect to participate in the scheme, which will apply to fixed internet services and public mobile services. 

While the rollout timeline does not yet specify the telco sector, the Department of the Treasury continue to work on the standards and rules which will apply. We do know that once the rules come into place, the implementation will be through a 2-part process, requiring Telstra, Optus and TPG to be subject to the obligations, followed by the rest of applicable telcos in the second tranche.  

We encourage you keep an eye on the development of the standards and rules and respond to the consultations where you can.  

The rules will be in place with your compliance mandatory before you know it… 

The government has passed legislation that will amend the Competition and Consumer Act 2010, which includes the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). The new amendments, which will come into effect from late 2023 (12 months after Royal Assent), include big changes, primarily with respect to penalties for anti-competitive conduct and breaches of the ACL.

The amended maximum penalties will be the greater of $50 million, if the court is able to calculate the value of the benefit, then 3 times that amount, or if the court is unable to calculate the value of the benefit, 30% of adjusted annual turnover during the period in which the breach occurred. These represent significant fines, so it is important to check your current contracts.

The ACL’s unfair contract terms regime will also expand ‘standard form’ contracts and ‘small business’ contracts, meaning you may now find that your business falls under the regime.

As the amendments don’t kick in for another 12 months following Royal Assent, this period is intended to allow businesses time to review their contracts. It will also only apply to new contracts (and renewals) entered into on or after the legislation comes into effect.

We recommend that affected members seek legal advice to ensure your contracts are free of unfair contract terms before the amendments come into effect, so you aren’t subject to these hefty fines.

Please note that the contents of this article do not constitute legal advice and are not intended to be a substitute for legal advice. You should seek legal or other professional advice in relation to any matters you or your organisation may have.

The policy team met with NBN Co to discuss their preliminary questions before the launch of their Low-Income Forum. The Forum aims to address the issues facing low-income and other vulnerable consumers with respect to the provision of NBN Co products and services. The Forum will likely kick off in 2023 Q1.

We emphasised that the focus should be on ensuring concrete changes to NBN Co products, features, processes and services so they work efficiently for both consumers and industry. In this way, there will not be any need to develop specific low-income products. RSPs should not need to get involved in determining whether a consumer is a low-income, or an otherwise vulnerable, consumer. We took the view that if services are easy and affordable for industry to get, operate and offer, consumers will also be able obtain affordable and reliable services.

In response to their question as to the scope of the Forum, we suggested that while the primary remit should be NBN Co products and services, this sort of forum could present a good space for industry and other stakeholders to address issues concerning low-income consumers and telecommunications services that could be fed back to government, which they could then use to develop funding, educational and/or awareness programs and services.

NBN Co is considering what sort of form the Forum will take, with the likely view that there will be specific working groups for different issues including the appropriate stakeholders. IAA will continue to be involved to represent our members on matters that affect RSPs. If you have any thoughts or concerns, please get in touch!

The Public Policy Advisory Panel plays a fundamental role in informing IAA’s advocacy work. The Panel began in 2022, with the first meeting being conducted in April. Since then, IAA’s policy team have established its public-policy principles, released various educational material, responded to over 15 consultations and made a genuine impact in policy affecting the telecommunications sector.

In our last meeting for 2022, we had a chance to review and consider with the Panel the strategy and focus of IAA’s policy work for the future; our stance on Australia’s privacy and security regimes that is likely to continue being points of focus in the next year; and other policy areas of concern for Panel members. We were also grateful to have APNIC speak to us about its policy development process and consider areas that may be useful for IAA to be involved where IAA’s members are concerned.

We are very grateful for each Panel members’ time and assistance over the past year and very much looking forward to continuing our advocacy efforts with their help in 2023!

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