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IAA Convergent 2024 continues

Online events

In July, we held our second online discussion, Upgrade Time!, featuring experienced network engineering specialists, Matthew Enger (Leaptel) and Nick Pratley (IAA). Together they explored the challenges of integrating a next generation kit with your existing installed base.

Two years ago, Matt presented a session on starting an ISP on a shoestring. In this session, he shared insight into the challenges he’s had in remaking that network as his ISP has grown, particularly where he has found the amazing loads his cheap and cheerful equipment has managed to carry. Nick added to the discussion, drawing upon his years of experience at the coal face of IXPs, comparing the ideal with the invariable reality as he talked through the levels of testing and evaluation IAA went through in its latest switch upgrades.

Once again, our CEO, Narelle Clark, expertly moderated the session, and we thank her and our speakers for an enlightening discussion.

Those who would love a second chance to see this online presentation, can now check it out on our IAA YouTube Channel!

Watch now

In-person

We also hosted  IAA Convergent In-person socials. First off was Perth where we took in the serene ambience of Terrarium in the city. As always, the crowd was mighty as Perth folks turned up for an evening of comparing notes and just enjoying each other’s company! Likewise in Brisbane, an excellent crowd of Members summoned up their Dutch Courage for a fabulous evening of gin tasting, canapés and great company. It’s always a pleasure to host our Members and guests at these in-person events, share news and hear all about what you’ve been up to.

We look forward to seeing you at the next one!

We’re pleased to share some photos from these fun-filled events:

IAA Convergent Perth at Terrarium
IAA Convergent Brisbane at Dutch Courage

Coming up

There are still more IAA Convergent events to come. We hope you can make them.

IAA Convergent Adelaide

IAA Members and their guests are invited to take a pre-completion tour of our forthcoming newest PoP, NEXTDC’s A1. It’s always fun to have a good look at a data centre under construction, and this one shouldn’t disappoint. Then, it’s over to The Elephant for an evening of drinks, canapés, and camaraderie at this popular British-style pub.

Date: Wednesday, 14 August 2024
Tour: A1 Adelaide | 211 Pirie St | Adelaide
Time: From 5:15pm – Steel cap boots must be worn. Once registered we will contact you via email for your shoe size, should you need us to provide boots for the tour.
Social: The Elephant British Pub | The West Room | 1 Cinema Pl | Adelaide
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm ACST

Tour registration
Social registration

IAA Convergent Canberra – Special 10th Anniversary Celebration!

IAA Members and your guests are invited to an evening of cocktails and canapés as we mark a decade of connectivity with ACT-IX! Enjoy delicious drinks, tasty bites, and perhaps even a chance to learn some mixology magic.

Date: Wednesday, 25 September 2024
Time: 6:00pm – 9:00pm AEST
Venue: Blue Eyes  | Level 1 | Garema Pl | Canberra

IAA Members can register themselves and their guests via the IAA Member Portal.

Register now!

By RSVPing, you are agreeing to comply with IAA’s Code of Conduct – Events.

IAASysters is swinging into action!

This September we’ll be heading to Sydney to host our fourth annual IAASysters Workshop. Once again, the program will be held one day before AusNOG at the same venue, giving our latest squad of IAASysters the opportunity to attend the conference, take advantage of industry networking, learn the latest industry trends and receive in-depth technical training.

Speakers announced

We’re delighted to have assembled last year’s dream team of speakers once again: Cheryl Alderman, Jill McKay and Sally Foley Lewis. They will provide expert career advice and focus on building key skills that support career advancement.

Shout out to our sponsors!

We are thrilled to announce that the ranks of our sponsors have swelled since May’s Newsletter and we would like to take this opportunity to showcase our amazing lineup of industry sponsors. We greatly appreciate their support for our program. Thanks to you all!

We look forward to seeing you in Sydney !

Grab some swag at AusNOG

If you’re heading to AusNOG this year, join us for some pre-conference fun with Beer, Gear & Peer (BGP). We’re excited to sponsor this new pre-AusNOG event. Come enjoy a great selection of nibbles and beverages while you catch up with industry experts and grab exclusive swag.

Date: Wednesday, 4th September 2024
Time: 3:00pm – 5:00pm AEST
Venue: The Fullerton Hotel | The Barnet Room | 1 Martin Pl | Sydney

FREE entry for all AusNOG ticketholders.

Members attending AusNOG are invited to reserve their IAA-LAN hoodie.Pre-order your preferred unisex size hoodie via the IAA Member Portal now. But hurry, limited edition, so first come, first served!

Congrats to Matt!

IAA would like to congratulate our Board Chair, Matthew Enger, who was recognised at the 2024 ACOMM Awards, winning the Communications Ambassador Award. This coveted award recognises outstanding individuals who show strong leadership and make a significant and visible contribution to the Australian communications industry.

The annual Australian Communications Industry Awards – the ACOMMS – recognise excellence in the wider communications industry. Hosted by Communications Alliance, the role of Communications Ambassador is considered the industry’s most prestigious accolade.

As Chair of our Board and Member of the NZIX Committee, we see how hard Matt works for our community and are thrilled that he has been recognised through this award.

The IAA Team attended the Awards Dinner in Sydney where the evening’s keynote address was delivered by the Federal Minister for Communications, The Hon. Michelle Rowland MP. It was a memorable evening, and we could not be more proud of Matt! Well done to all the winners!

Data Centre Real Estate Summit

In May, our CEO, Narelle Clark, gave a presentation at the Data Centre Real Estate Summit in Sydney. Whilst data centres were once considered an alternative asset class, they are becoming more sought after by investors.

The Data Centre Real Estate Summit focused on real estate and investment strategies, bringing together all the key global and local players to discuss the national data centre market, new developments and acquisitions, supply and demand dynamics, construction, development, and design trends.

Narelle gave an informative and, by all accounts, entertaining talk on the evolution of data centre design and advancements in technology and solutions. Her insights underscored the critical role data centres play in today’s digital economy. She closed by putting the audience’s skills to the test, to see how good they were at identifying a data centre when they saw one.

Head to this IAA YouTube clip of the talk to test your skills.

Tech News – August 2024

100G-LR optics offer for NSW-IX Members

We’re pleased to introduce single-lambda 100G-LR interfaces in select NSW-IX points of presence. This upgrade offers our Members a cost-optimised solution for 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) connectivity.

Here’s what you can expect:

Simplified Design, Lower Cost: 100G-LR uses a single-wavelength architecture, eliminating the need for complex and expensive optical designs found in older 100GbE technologies. This translates to a substantially lower total cost for transceivers.

Seamless Integration: Fully compatible with a wide range of routers and switches equipped with QSFP28 electrical interfaces, 100G-LR allows for easier network upgrades without significant hardware changes.

Future-Proofing for your Network: As demand for 100GbE grows, 100G-LR provides a scalable and efficient solution to meet your evolving bandwidth needs.

If you’re interested and connected to the NSW-IX contact support@internet.asn.au.

Compute stack renewal

After thoroughly evaluating virtualisation solutions, our tech team has successfully migrated our virtual machine (VM) infrastructure to a Proxmox virtual environment. Transitioning to the advanced open-source virtualisation platform demonstrates IAA’s commitment to reliable, efficient, and scalable services for our Members. Of course the price comparison between VMWare and an open source solution was pretty favourable too!

Here are the key benefits of Proxmox for Members:

  • High availability and minimal downtime.
  • Greater efficiency, as it’s easier for our engineering teams to provision, monitor and maintain VMs.
  • Scalability of our virtual infrastructure to meet Members’ growing demands.
  • Customisation to meet specific needs with access to the latest features and security enhancements for future-proofing.

Our tech team will continue to innovate and enhance our services to provide you with the best experience possible. Of course, Nick also enjoyed taking the system apart and rebuilding it afresh!

Equinix SY3 - extreme makeover edition

Confession time! IAA had a dirty little secret: Equinix SY3. A tangled mess of cross connects well over 10 years old. As you can see in the before photo from 2020 there was an ugly number of low-density SC panels, as well as an old Cisco 2901 used for OOB purposes. The pièce de résistance was the stacked Extreme x670s, prone to crashing spectacularly (see the notorious Incident Report of 25 February 2021), which subsequently led to the stack’s removal (as detailed in this Scheduled Maintenance Report).

Then, this year, our intrepid tech engineers (namely Aaron) embarked on an ambitious mission to clean up the rack. They boldly removed the final x670, deftly mass-migrated peers off that box, and permanently deleted the SC panels! The rack has now been tamed!

As the connoisseurs amongst us will attest, there is still a bit of work to do to achieve perfect cabling order, such as better cable bars, proper cable lengths, replacing the 100G CR4s with LR1s or CWDM4s, and moving the higher-density LC panels further up. Regardless, we’re proud to declare that the rack is ready to welcome a shiny new Arista to our 800Gbps core.

Mission accomplished!

IAA Member Portal News – August 2024

We are excited to announce the latest updates to the Member Portal:

Streamlined Payment Flow: The payment process has been completely overhauled to make adding payment methods and paying invoices more accessible and convenient.

Pre-order Ports: The membership application form has been updated to allow Members to pre-order ports when onboarding as a member.

Improved Functionality: We continue to enhance the Portal’s functionality with the main achievement being we’ve added Arista configuration support to our existing network automation system. This enables network automation on the new Arista switches and 400Gbps ports.

We remain committed to providing our Members with the best possible experience and welcome your feedback on these new features.

What is the IAA Public Policy Advisory Panel (PPAP) and what does it do?

Formed in 2022, the IAA Public Policy Advisory Panel is an advisory body of IAA Members that help inform IAA’s public policy and advocacy work related to the telecommunications sector.

Involvement in policy and legislative reform in the Internet and broader telecommunications landscape is a critical part of IAA’s work. Indeed, the Western Australia Internet Association, IAA’s precursor, started as an advocacy body. That’s why we hold the Panel to be so important to our advocacy work.

The Panel meets quarterly to discuss live and upcoming policy issues affecting the Internet industry. The feedback provided by our Members via the Panel greatly informs our responses to the various consultations held by Government and regulatory bodies on matters that affect our industry, and therefore you, our Members!

We have found the Panel immensely helpful for our advocacy work since its formation and believe it has had a genuine impact in shaping telecommunications/Internet policy. For example, we couldn’t have participated as meaningfully during the NBN Co SAU reform process without the input of our Panel, the outcome of which we believe resulted in an SAU that is fairer for smaller RSPs, especially on matters related to NNI.

IAA is also regularly invited by government and regulators to be the voice for smaller communications providers in the industry. More recently, we have been championing our Members in discussions surrounding the security and resilience of telecommunications as part of Australia’s critical infrastructure ecosystem. The Panel has again been of great help, serving as a sounding board for proposed reforms.

Most recently during our last quarterly meeting in June, Panel Members engaged in spirited discussion over the TIO’s complaints handling processes and TCP Code reforms, and more broadly, our concerns about growing calls for direct regulation from regulators, consumer groups and government.

As the telco sector faces increasing regulatory pressures, it’s more important than ever to make sure that the voices of smaller ISPs are heard and able to influence policy makers. We greatly appreciate the Panel and encourage IAA Members to get involved to contribute to IAA’s advocacy efforts.

If you would like to know more about the Panel, please reach out at policy@internet.asn.au.

Advocacy Corner: May – July 2024

Don’t be fooled by the lower than usual number of consultations going on, there’s still lots happening in the sector when it comes to policy!

Co-regulation for telecommunications continues to come under fire and is very topical as Communications Alliance released its near-complete draft of the Telecommunications Consumer Protections (TCP) Code Review 2024 to the Review Committee on 20 May. The ACCC, and TIO in particular, have critiqued the TCP Code Review iteration, claiming it does not sufficiently protect consumers. We can expect public consultation on the revised TCP Code to open shortly.

The TIO will soon be implementing changes to their reclassification processes, and publishing guidance material surrounding complaints handling processes, including what constitutes a consumer’s “reasonable attempt to contact a telecommunications service provider” before lodging a complaint with the TIO.

The IAA Public Policy Advisory Panel (PPAP) met for its quarterly meeting on 11 June where there was a spirited discussion on the future of co-regulation in the telecommunications industry, and what can be done to defend it. IAA will be calling for nominations for the PPAP later this year, so make sure to keep an eye open.

Our policy team has also been busy attending bilateral meetings with regulators and government over the period, including on matters related the ACMA’s compliance and enforcement approach, the National Office of Cybersecurity, and the federal government’s telecommunications strategy to 2035.

On the Internet Governance front, we are excited to share the news of the launch of the auIGF (previously NetThing) which will be held this year in Melbourne on 28-29 October. IAA has been a long-time supporter and participant of Australia’s Internet governance community, and encourage you to attend.

The Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy Australia (APIGA Australia) also recently launched. A program to foster the next generation of youth leaders in Australia’s Internet and digital ecosystem, APIGA Australia are providing fellowships to attend its inaugural event held in November 2024. You can read more about APIGA Australia on their website.

Also! Don’t forget your upcoming compliance obligations:

  • CommCom TCP Code attestation, due 2 September 2024; and
  • Fair Work’s ‘Right to disconnect’ policy will come into place for non-small business employers on 26 August 2024, and small-business employers from 26 August 2025. Eligible employees will have the right to refuse employer or third-party contact outside of working hours. Arnotts Technology Lawyers have prepared some legal documents to assist our Members with their compliance. You can access their ‘Right to disconnect’ Policy template, along with a FAQs document, via the ‘Right to Disconnect – Template Pack’ in the Legal Templates section of the IAA Member Portal.

As always, please get in touch to share any thoughts on any of the open and/or previous submissions as we really appreciate your feedback.

Completed Submissions:

Statutory Review of the Online Safety Act 2021 | Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and the Arts

Implementing changes to reclassification | Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman

Upcoming Submissions:

Please check the Advocacy webpage for updates.

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