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Last month marked 10 years since we became the Internet Association of Australia.
Back in January 2016, our community was growing well beyond Western Australia. With the successful launch of NSW-IX, momentum building nationally, and NZIX taking shape, it became clear our name needed to reflect who we really were.
Under President Tom Berryman, the Association proposed a change from the Western Australian Internet Association (WAIA) to the Internet Association of Australia (IAA).
- We had the logo.
- We had the domain.
- We had the vision.
What we needed was Member support.
At a well-attended Special General Meeting in Perth, Members overwhelmingly backed the change, reflecting our evolution from a WA-centric organisation to one with national reach and purpose.
Who can say what the next decade will bring?
Please join us in warmly welcoming Sybil Williams to the IAA Board. Following the Board Planning Retreat in November, Sybil was appointed as a director of the Association. She took up the appointment to assist the Board and staff, bringing a strategic and market-facing perspective to support the Association’s advocacy, growth, and long-term direction.
Sybil brings more than 20 years’ experience in marketing, communications, and strategy, working with technology, telecommunications, and purpose-led organisations. She is the Founder of Atomic Tangerine, where she advises boards and executive teams on strategy, marketing, brand positioning, and stakeholder engagement.
As we look to strengthen the Association’s market position, improve engagement with Members and pursue sustainable growth opportunities, we are thrilled to gain her experience and expertise.
If you have any questions, please email us at secretary@internet.asn.au.
As we head into 2026, our technical roadmap is focused on scale, automation, and delivering stronger performance and value for our Members across all exchanges. Here’s a snapshot of what’s underway:
Service automation
Over the past few months, we’ve been building towards our goal of full-service automation across ports, peering, and VLL services. Our plan is to enable faster provisioning and improved self-service capability through the IAA Member Portal. We’re targeting an early 2026 release, and when it’s ready we’ll be making some noise!
AS10084: new routers coming online
As our content network continues to grow, so too does the demand for larger capacity ports. We will be upgrading content routers at each exchange to 32x100Gbps platforms, with 400Gbps uplinks towards the exchange fabric, strengthening our capacity for growth.
VIC-IX 400Gbps deployment
With new hardware on the way, we will be upgrading VIC-IX to be fully 400Gbps capable across all sites. This is a key step in supporting ongoing growth in traffic volumes and high-capacity Member requirements.
VIC-IX NEXTDC M2 deployment
IAA is looking to expand our coverage on the VIC-IX. With more and more organisations setting up operations in Melbourne due to subsea cable connections, we see a lot of growth here still to come.
We’ve rolled out a set of practical improvements to the IAA Member Portal, designed to give Members greater control, faster service changes, and better visibility over their connectivity.
Change request rollbacks
Members can now roll back changes made to their services directly within the Portal.
While requests are still actioned by our network team, this feature provides an extra layer of confidence when making changes and is an important step toward fully automated provisioning.
Faster peering activation
The Portal is now integrated directly with our route servers for peering services.
When ordering a new peering service, a Member’s BGP session details are deployed on demand, meaning new peering can be active as soon as the service is provisioned, rather than waiting up to 24 hours as before.
Updates to existing peering services (such as AS-SETs and prefix limits) are also applied immediately.
Smarter cross connect reminders
When Members upgrade or cancel ports, the Portal will now issue reminders to cancel old cross connects with their data centre provider.
There are mutual benefits here as Members can ensure they aren’t paying data centres for cross connects they aren’t using any more, and we can make more efficient use of our data centre cabling.
This year, the IAA Convergent Event Series is going back to where it all began as we relive the stories, tech, and moments that shaped how we connect.
Across 2026, we’ll be hosting Convergent events in some genuinely fascinating venues, including communication and technology museums around the country.
Expect behind-the-scenes tours, nostalgic throwbacks, iconic hardware, and plenty of “remember when?” moments, alongside the good conversations and familiar faces that make Convergent what it is.
It’s a chance to step away from the day-to-day, enjoy a relaxed evening with industry peers, and reflect on how far the internet and our community have come (with drinks and nibbles in hand, of course).
We’re kicking off the series in Sydney with an exclusive visit to the NBN Discovery Centre, with Melbourne, Brisbane, and more to follow.
Spots are limited for each event.
Learn more and register via the IAA Member Portal:
IAA Convergent Sydney
Date: Wednesday, 11 March 2026
Time: 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM AEST
Venue: NBN Discovery Centre | 100 Mount St | North Sydney | Sydney
IAA Convergent Melbourne & VIC-IX 15th anniversary
Date: Wednesday, 29 April 2026
Time: 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM AEST
Venue: National Communication Museum | 375 Burwood Rd | Hawthorn | Melbourne
IAA Convergent Brisbane & QLD-IX 15th anniversary
Date: Wednesday, 13 May 2026
Time: 5:30 PM – 9:00 PM AEST
Venue: Queensland Communications Museum | 3 Oriel Road | Clayfield | Brisbane
Followed by: Hamilton Hotel | 442 Kingsford Smith Drive | Hamilton | Brisbane
IAASysters NZ is just around the corner, taking place in Christchurch on Wednesday, 25 March 2026, followed by a two-day conference. Thanks to NZNOG for their support in hosting once again!
For Aussies, there’s still time to be involved in IAASysters 2026 in Brisbane (2–4 September 2026). Each year we have 10 funded places available, and we’re inviting applications, nominations, and sponsors to support women in the internet industry to attend right now!
Applications close Friday 24 April 2026, 5:00 pm AEST.
Apply, nominate or sponsor now!