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IAA staff posing for a photo at the WiTWA awards evening

WiTWA Conference and Awards: a recap

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.

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So, what did it take to Keep Ukraine Connected in a war zone?

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!

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graph of IAA IXP traffic

NSW-IX reached a traffic milestone!

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.

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Keep an eye on the CDR

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… 

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Are your contracts free of unfair terms?

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.

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