IAA Newsletters
Well, here we are in 2026!
With this sweltering summer half over already, we look to the list of things we have in the pipeline this year: a suite of events where we’ll visit communications history museums, more upgrades to get 400G ports everywhere, and hopefully polishing off our network automation efforts soon. Some of you will have already seen the benefit of roll-back capability and route server integration, which are super useful, I’m sure. We’ve recently also completed rearranging our content services to improve access and keep the deluge of Google content flowing your way, and activated a new POP at NextDC’s S2.
Like many of you, we’ll also have to lift our compliance game with the new security requirements landing later this year. We’ve been managing our risk and reporting it to our Board for quite some time, but having to certify our level of compliance will be a challenge, one I’m sure our Members will be sympathetic to. We’re also sorting out some training to ensure that our Members have the best opportunity to be compliant with the Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence standard that came into being last year. You’ll find more detail in this newsletter item on a practical, cost-effective approach to supporting compliance, including shared training and consultation costs across the Membership.
Another big event for us will be to join our brothers and sisters across the ditch as they celebrate 10 years of NZIX! We remain close partners to their success with us continuing to operate their peering exchanges and admin systems for them. It’s been a fascinating journey watching them grow to where they are today.
Happy peering!
Narelle
Question from the desk
Each newsletter, I will pose a question to Members, because your perspective is important. Please email me with your thoughts and opinions. Over to you:
In the era of risk compliance – which model have you chosen to certify with, and why?
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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!
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We hope you enjoyed some time off during the festive season because there are plenty of regulatory updates for the year ahead! Our policy team was busy responding to consultations before the year-end period, and has jumped straight back to policy work in the new year on various regulatory reform matters that will affect our Members.
Online safety
We released guidance material on the Online Safety Code obligations for ISPs, available to Members via the IAA Member Portal. The Phase 2 Code came into effect for ISPs on 27 December 2025, so make sure you’re compliant!
Telco Domestic and Family Violence Standard
We are continuing to work with WISPAU and domestic and family violence expert organisations to find the best way to deliver template and training material for our Members to be compliant with the new DFSV Standard, which you can read about in this newsletter item. The ACMA also recently updated its guidance material to reflect changes to the definition of ‘urgent complaint’ and has also published templates to notify the ACMA of privacy breaches in relation to an affected person in accordance with the DFSV Standard:
Public Register of Outages
The ACMA is currently consulting on amendments to the existing Telecommunications (Customer Communications for Outages) Industry Standard (CCO Standard) to introduce a new Public Register of Outages in accordance with directions from the Minister for Communications.
Telecommunications providers will have to establish and maintain an outage register on their websites that is publicly available and compliant with accessibility requirements. The register must be operational by 30 June 2026. We will update the template materials provided in the IAA Member Portal on the CCO Standard to include the outage register requirements once these amendments come into effect.
Record keeping rules
Following its 2025 Review of the various record keeping rules in the telecommunications sector, the ACCC released its final report. As per its findings, the ACCC will be establishing a new Wholesale and Networks Record Keeping Rules to come into effect in late 2026, and a new Retail Record Keeping Rules to commence in 2027. The ACCC will be consulting on these RKRs in the coming months.
Completed submissions:
Open consultations:
ACMA – Proposed public register of telecommunications outages | 18 February 2026
As always, please get in touch to share any thoughts on any of the open consultations and/or previous submissions as we really appreciate your feedback.