The Telecommunications Industry
As many of you are aware, in the middle of the year the Australian Government will deregulate the telecommunications market, changing the rules by which telecommunications companies can compete. As a result of this, much legislation has passed, some of which impacts on your use of the Internet.

Probably the most important piece of legislation that will affect many of our dialup customers is that of timed local telephone calls - you may have to pay Telstra by the minute for the time you are connected to the Internet.

Further information on the Timed Local Calls issue is available through a site set up by the Western Australian Internet Association, and you can access it by typing the address into your web browser:

http://www.waia.asn.au/Issues/TimedCalls/

On this site is a link to an online petition where you can register your disapproval of timed local calls be instigated for Internet usage, as well as a list of things you can do about the issue. The petition is available at

http://www.ozlink.net/

Another result from the new Telecommunications Bill is that the "local loop", the connection between the phone in your home and your office, and the telephone exchange, is still owned by Telstra. As a result, Telstra still have a monopoly over the local telephone service despite deregulation. This ensures there still won't be true competition in the provision of local call access, despite claims to the contrary.

Upgrade on services
Since Christmas we've had a considerable upgrade of the services we offer in many respects

• More Dialups
  We've added over 300 new phone lines in the first quarter of 1997. Additional modems are being added this week to alleviate the Easter school holidays rush, in addition to our regular expansion of dialup services.

• More Bandwidth
  We've added a new link to Telstra ex-Perth, increased the speed of the Access One link ex-Perth, and enabled a Telstra link ex-Adelaide. Our link to our Mandurah node was doubled.

• Faster Dialups
  Hundreds of our modems in Perth have been upgraded to 33600 technology, and all new modems in all of our locations are using this technology. Our remaining 28800 modems in Adealide are also being upgraded to 33600 shortly.

  In the second quarter of 1997 we intend to trial 56K technology allowing twice the speed currently available.

• Password Authentication Protocol
  Our terminal servers now have PAP enabled for dialup accounts, which means that in some operating systems such as Windows 95, you no longer need to install dialup scripts, making connections more reliable.

Service Difficulties
As many of you are aware, there have been several incidents over the past couple of weeks in Western Australia which have resulted in an unacceptably high number of service interruptions. Unfortunately, many of these problems have been rather esoteric causing delays in their resolution.

We'd like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank you for your patience, and to assure you that our highest priority is to return the system to long term stability and high performance.

Please also note that we have a Fault Report system, whereby Down and Up notices are announced at the time of a fault, detailing the services affected, the expected duration and the final solution to the problem. You can access this information either by reading the newsgroup iinet.netstatus, or by subscribing to the iiNet Status mailing list at http://listmaster.iinet.net.au/

Internet Domain Names
Domain names are indentifiers on the Internet, used for web addresses and email addresses. iiNet's domain name is "iinet.net.au", and many of our affiliate members have domains specifically for their own companies.

In late 1996, a commercial company called Melbourne IT was introduced to handle registrations that ended in "com.au". In doing so, they introduced a questionable renewal policy for those who owned "com.au" domains before Melbourne IT was running the system.

As a result, iiNet launched a legal challenge in the Federal Court this month in order to achieve a fair policy for these legacy domains. Melbourne IT threatened to remove "com.au" domains that did not pay a license fee by March 17, 1997. We are pleased to say that as a result of our court action, this date has been moved back. Furthermore, Melbourne IT has publically stated they are to use the policies the iiNet has recommended.

Further information is at

http://www.iinet.net.au/com.au/

iiNet's Training Services
iiNet has a fully serviced training facility in the centre of Perth. Run by Intuition, the training division of iiNet, we can offer several introductory training courses for the Internet, as well as custom courses and venue hire.

The facility is connected via ethernet to iiNet's high speed bandwidth for unmatched speed, plus the facility is excellent for both Internet use, and other network uses such as games.

Intuition's trainer, Guy Hickey, has years of experience with training, having been a senior trainer at Apple Computers for several years.

Internet Relay Chat
iiNet now hosts an AustNet IRC Server, accessable via irc.iinet.net.au or iiNet.au.austnet.org.

AUSTnet is based upon the principle of an efficient, secure and well developed network that allows users to own their channels and actively participate in the growth of an International network. Founded in Australia, AUSTnet has rapidly expanded through Canada, Singapore and the United States, providing international coverage, with high quality servers. AUSTnet holds minimal lag and netsplits along with exceptional public services.

Easter Times
Easter is here, and it is one of the few times where our support staff get a chance to remove themselves from the computers and meet with their families. Please note our slightly ammended telephone support and office hours:

                          Perth Office    Adelaide Office
  Thursday, 27th March    8AM to 10PM     9AM to 7PM
  Friday, 28th March      CLOSED          12PM to 5PM
  Saturday, 29th March    9AM to 5PM      12PM to 5PM
  Sunday, 30th March      CLOSED          12PM to 5PM
  Monday, 31st March      9AM to 5PM      12PM to 5PM
  Tuesday, 1st April      8AM to 10PM     9AM to 7PM

As always, our network will be working 24 hours a day over the period, and our technical support people will be on call throughout this time to address any issues that might arise.

From everyone at iiNet, have a safe and enjoyable Easter.