* Welcome
* Network News
* Standard Form of Agreement
* Games News

Welcome

Hello and welcome to iiNet's April Newsletter. Last month saw several iiNet clients from our newsgroup, iinet.general take up the opportunity to see what it would be like working the support desk. We would like to thank our invited guests and say that we think it was a positive experience for both parties.

Network News

The big news for this month concerning our Network is the upgrading of both our Bunbury and Broome Points of Presence(POPs). Bunbury's bandwidth went from 1280K up to 1984K and we increased the number of dial in lines by 90, bringing the total number of lines to 330. This increase was due to consumer growth and expansion in this region. Broome's POP received 30 new lines bringing the total to 90 lines for this area.

Both of these POPs have new dial in numbers too. Bunbury's is 9707 3000 and Broome's is 9195 6000. As always before changing the number your modem dials to connect to iiNet, you should first check with your telecommunications carrier to verify that this is a local call for you.

In April iiNet will be increasing our outbound links via UUNET and Optus from 54Mbits to 60Mbits.

Standard Form of Agreement

iiNet is proud to announce that our new "Standard Form of Agreement" has been lodged with the Australian Communications Authority under Part 23 of the Telecommunications Act. This will streamline opening new accounts, and provide an online reference for all account-related enquiries. This document replaces our Acceptable Use Policy and binds existing and new accounts as of the 23rd of April 2001.

The full SFOA is online at http://www.iinet.net.au/help/sfoa/ or is available from iiNet's offices upon request. A summary of the SFOA is required under law to be sent to all clients and appears below.

This is a summary of the iiNet "Standard Form of Agreement" or "SFOA". The SFOA sets out the terms and conditions of your Internet Access products and services through iiNet, and applies to all new clients.

Under Part 23 of the Telecommunications Act 1997, iiNet must give a copy of this summary to all new clients, and make this summary available to existing clients. The SFOA is lodged with the Australian Communications Authority and binds new clients and iiNet. The Act provides that the terms of the SFOA bind new clients whether or not they have a copy, and whether or not they have read it, so iiNet recommends you read the SFOA as the complete statement of your contract with iiNet.

An online copy of the full SFOA is online at the iiNet web site at http://www.iinet.net.au/help/sfoa/ , from all iiNet offices and resellers. This summary covers some of the important terms of the SFOA, and is for informational purposes. Please read the full SFOA if you have any questions not covered in this summary, or contact our customer service team.

If iiNet wishes to change the SFOA, or new legislation makes changes necessary, iiNet must give you prior notice of the changes if those changes are in any way detrimental to you. iiNet will inform you by email, and publish a notice in "The Australian" newspaper if such changes are contemplated.

The SFOA sets out iiNet's conditions of use and defines the types of accounts available from iiNet for new clients. Each new client will receive a copy of the account plan details which set out the particular goods or services under that "Plan". The SFOA sets out all charges payable, and refers to the total charges for each plan.

If you have any problems at all with your Internet Access or other iiNet products or services, or have any queries about the Plan you are on or iiNet's policy, please contact our Customer Service team on (08) 9214 2222 , email support@iinet.net.au or facsimiles to (08) 9214 2211. Callers outside the Perth Metropolitan Area may call 13 22 58.

You will be billed for your Internet Access with iiNet according to the Plan. There are various payment methods available and invoices are sent to you at least 14 days before being due for payment. Cancelled or changed accounts are subject to a $10.00 handling fee, and refunds are payable only in exceptional circumstances on cancelled accounts.

iiNet reserves the right to terminate the Internet Access for non-payment or certain types of abuse, defined in the SFOA. If you owe iiNet money for goods, or are using iiNet property, on termination of the account iiNet may recover this equipment.

Generally, use of the Internet Access is at the client's own risk, and the SFOA limits liability for downtime, inappropriate content or abuses such as computer viruses. It is very important to check your call costs, as iiNet will not be liable for charges due to others such as your telecommunications carrier.

Under the SFOA, the client indemnifies iiNet against liability to third parties and if iiNet is sued for a client's breach of copyright, defamation or similar civil offence, iiNet will seek to recover all costs and expenses from the client.

Within the SFOA is a guide to your privacy rights and a note on password protection. The Internet can be a hazard to privacy, and it is the client's responsibility to keep safe the password for their account. The Internet Access is for the named account holder only, unless use of the account by others has been agreed by iiNet in writing, and is non-transferable.

If you have any complaints, please contact our Customer Service Team in the first instance. Complaints can be escalated to the Customer Service Manager if required, and as a last resort, complaints may be handled at no cost to you by the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (www.tio.com.au) or your local Ministry of Fair Trading.

All information concerning iiNet and its Internet Access plans is online at the iiNet web site www.iinet.net.au or call a Customer Service officer on (08) 9214 2222.

Games News

With the anticipated release of Tribes 2 in Early April, iiNet Games is understandably quite excited!

The past month has seen a lot of action in the games world. There were updates released for Halflife, Counterstrike, Day of Defeat, Quake III Rocket Arena and Unreal Tournament.

The servers are all running these new patches, and gamers will need to upgrade in order to keep playing on the iiNet servers. The FTP server has been updated and the game patches can all be found here:

ftp://ftp.iinet.net.au/pub/games/

On a more novel note, iiNet Games has released a Tetrinet server. You can find all about Tetrinet at http://tetrinet.org If this server proves popular, it will be made permanent. For now, the tetrinet server can be found at 203.59.27.1.

Keep a close eye on iiNet Games over the coming month for more news on Tribes 2. It may be in stores as early as next week.

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter, we hope it has been useful to you.

Jody Morris created this newsletter with input from Glen Lewis, Kim Heitman, Kim Davies and Nathan Thomas.