Well, here we are in 2025! We’ve got some great plans for the year, with some fabulous events to mark our 30^th anniversary. We’re really proud of our history and of the future we have. We have more upgrades and expansion planned, and are actively reviewing our footprint as well as any potential new locations. This year will see the end of our QV1 basement room and that truly will be the end of an era! If you still have kit in our QV1 room, please make sure you talk to the IAA team about its future.

We’re also kicking off the year with a significant change —our Member Portal now allows you to order 100G LR1 optical transceivers across any 100Gbps-enabled site. As the successor to 100GBASE-LR4, LR1 simplifies deployment, reduces failure points, and offers cost savings all round. In fact this is such a benefit we are offering members the optics free of charge on your new 100Gbps port!

Like many of you, over Christmas I had some quality time with the extended family, and part of this was with younger members just starting out in their working lives. These kids (actually young adults) are wondering what to do, and how best to get there, so the dinner table conversation headed to the paths people took in and along their careers.

Of course, I spent some time encouraging them into our industry and their questions followed quickly. What are the skills people need to get in? Where do they best get them?

If we look around, there are numerous pathways in and around the internet industry, and some of them are less available than they were. It seems the engineering degree I completed is no longer running, but there are countless online resources that teach a lot of really useful material for the motivated learner. Microcredentials and TAFE courses too seem pretty solid, and even starting with some of the electrical or cabling certificates which are quite short, will certainly help them along. (Given I seem to be breaking all my home cabling, I might need to re-enrol in one of those myself!) The vendor certificates aren’t the guarantee of a well-paid job they once were, but many do give a good grounding for those starting out. A quick search on Seek also shows a pile of traineeships available: is this a path our Members offer?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about where and how we grow the next generation of talent. Please send them through as this is an area we’ll explore some more this year.

Happy peering!

Narelle 
IAA CEO