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Well, here we are in the last gasps of 2020, and a year we’re glad to see the back of, that’s for sure! Over here at IAA, we’re getting those last few upgrades into place before the team head off for a bit of a break. It’s great to see those intercapital links coming on stream at last, with new capacity lighting up between Sydney and Melbourne as well as Melbourne and Adelaide. You’ll also be glad to hear that we’ve increased the capacity between our content networks so that your customers can all enjoy their streaming services full pelt over the holiday season. We’ve already seen an uptick of some 20Gbps throughput out of the most popular services!

Speaking of content, we have also just got the new Sourceforge mirror up, and soon we expect to see FreeBSD mirrored, as well as a new DNS root source on our network. Melbourne peers should also be enjoying the extra capacity into our Google cache by now, too.

We have had our last Life Under Lockdown event, and we are in the process of organising a member round table with the Minister for Communications’ office on the topic of NBN onboarding for RSPs. If you missed out on an invitation, do get in touch so that we can add you to our list.

Well, that’s it from me for the year. May you all have a much less stressful, far more profitable 2021.

Happy peering!

Narelle Clark

One item that caught our eye last month was NBN Co’s confusing announcement that the CVC boost will be phased out. This will be coupled with new pricing and a new wholesale agreement. We are still in the process of unpicking what this all means, and it seems NBN Co isn’t quite sure what it all means either. Either way, we welcome member thoughts on this as we will be actively engaging in the next round of consultations over this with a view to getting clarity and improvement in the pricing and services.

We would officially like to welcome two new members to the IAA Board, Richard Thompson from Cloudflare and Nate Garr from StackPath, both elected by corporate members for two-year terms.

We are also delighted to welcome back to the board David Hooton, Matthew Moyle-Croft, Matthew Enger and Brett O’Hara. David and Brett were both elected by corporate members for three-year terms, whilst Matthew Moyle-Croft and Matthew Enger were elected by professional members, for three year and two-year terms, respectively.

New and returning members will join Matthew McDonough and Daryl Collins who are continuing their two-year terms after their election last year. Thank you also to Daryl for fulfilling the duties of Returning Officer at this year’s election.

The IAA Board and staff would also like to thank Nathan Brookfield who retired from the Board at this year’s AGM, after five years tireless work on behalf of the Association. Thank you also to Jay Binks for his service over the last year.

There are also several areas to highlight as focus for the year ahead. A consultation process with members will be undertaken over a proposal to become a national not-for-profit organisation under Australian corporations law, potentially moving away from the state-based associations law under which we currently sit. Rest assured, such a move would not mean abandoning our WA home, rather it would mean streamlining our governance. Our WA roots are too strong, too valuable and too important to lose.

Speaking of things important to our hearts, an announcement was also made of a program to remember Kellie Ireland which will assist a range of women both entering and continuing in the industry, and we hope members will support this initiative. Stay tuned in future for further announcements.

Several upcoming technical projects were also discussed during the meeting:

  • Intercapital upgrades
  • Further replacements of BDX8 switches in Melbourne
  • 100G Facebook caches to be activated in Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth
  • New content and mirrors

If you have anything you’d like to see in our content caches, do please get in touch, and we’ll do our best to get it on board!

If you missed the meeting, or would like to re-watch the proceedings, you can view the recording on our YouTube Channel or Facebook page. The AGM presentation slides and our first Annual Report publication are available to download our website.

We were also very lucky to secure guest speaker Jari Arkko of Ericsson Research to present at this year’s AGM. Jari’s presentation Evolving the Internet through COVID-19 and Beyond looked at how the Internet has been coping during these periods of lockdown, other changes brought about by the pandemic, and what lessons can be learned from these into the future. You can also watch Jari’s presentation on our YouTube Channel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IAA will be increasing Melbourne’s cache capacity by an additional 100G for Netflix and Google caches in November. Members are reminded that the Facebook cache is an opt in service, but all other cache capacity will be available immediately.

After a lengthy build up, it’s a relief to say we held our AGM for FY19-20 on 27 October, and with our first ever published Annual Report. I would like to thank all members who attended and hope you enjoyed the format. I would personally like to thank the staff and Board members who put so much into the event, and in all the effort over the year. Especially my thanks go to Nathan Brookfield who is stepping down from the Board after five years’ service.

The rest of the month has contained our usual member catch ups, and meetings with politicians, including the Minister for Communications. We’re expecting to meet with NBN Co soon, so please send your feedback in. We’ve also got more on the way in the form of extra network, caches and content. Also, don’t forget our end of year embargo, so get your orders in now.

Happy reading,

Narelle Clark

This month we announced our guest speaker for the AGM, looked at how good our internet is and welcomed the new 100G Facebook cache.

Read the full newsletter here.

We are in the process of building additional mirror servers and are open to suggestions for content! Is there any content you would like us to mirror? Do you prefer cat videos or linux distros? Let us know! Email our team on peering@internet.asn.au

IAA welcomes the new 100Gbps Facebook cache in Victoria. Members who want to receive Facebook content in these exchanges, please ensure your PeeringDB record is up-to-date and reach out to Facebook to setup a bilateral BGP session.

We are working currently to activate caches in Qld and WA and will advise members once they are available.

Information about Facebook’s peering policies and contacts appear in their PeeringDB record.

We have had an exciting and challenging month this month with numerous projects and events. Our RPKI activation went completely smoothly, so now we can all be smug that our routing is as clean as can be. We also welcomed Sean Riordan from the ACCC with SamKnows for a lively session on broadband performance measurement at our latest Life Under Lockdown online event, and I presented at APNIC 50 giving a recap of the Australian ISP industry’s survival tactics during the pandemic. I’ve continued to meet with members on an individual basis, and also added some politicians and other stakeholders this month.

Our strong stance on the resumption of CVC charging has paid off, with NBN Co announcing it would extend the discount. We will continue with this advocacy, and I have raised it directly with the Minister for Communications. I also raised other issues including the challenges our members see in NBN onboarding – if you have experienced difficulty with the onboarding process, please get in touch as we will be following up on this issue further with both the Minister and NBN Co.

Unfortunately, we did have to postpone the AGM to make sure that we are squeaky clean in our approach to enabling voting. Your voice is genuinely important, so we thought it best to withdraw the special resolutions. The delay also means we will be able to have a guest speaker, and I am proud to announce that Jari Arkko, former head of the IETF, and current member of the IAB and Ericsson Research, will be talking about the evolution of the internet and hopefully will include some fun observations about his adventures with IoT.

Nick and the team have also completed some more upgrades, so you should be enjoying faster, more reliable route services. Well done team!

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