Australian Public Access Network Association Inc.

Annual Report to APANA Members - 1994

From the Prez ...

In the Prez report for the last AGM, I noted "APANA has developed amazingly over the past twelve months". We've done it again! Exactly a year ago we gained our first live Internet connections in a couple of regions; now APANA has IP connectivity in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Katherine, Melbourne and Sydney.

Organisationally, we have met the challenge of becoming a truly national organisation. One only has to look at the list of management committee nominations and the proposed rule changes to see APANA's national nature.

I extend my best wishes to the members of the new management committee, and hope APANA continues to move from success to success.

see you on the net,

Andrew Herbert


Secretary's Report

The Year in Review

This has been a year of spectacular growth, both technically and numerically.

The year ahead will undoubtedly hold major challenges for APANA as an organisation. A further five-fold growth would take us to three thousand members, probably beyond the point where our administration can be run by volunteer labour, and certainly into a whole new class of technology. Interesting times indeed! But if we all hang in there, we can make something really worthwhile out of this thing.

Nick Langmaid


A Regional Perspective

Adelaide

APANA SA has enjoyed considerable success during the last 12 months. We've gone from an STD-polling UUCP region into full IP connectivity, and we've managed to build a good relationship with our service providers (Telecom, connect.com.au pty ltd and the Disability Information Resource Centre). Our userbase is steadily growing, and we see every reason for that growth to continue. Besides all that: This network is still a fun place to participate! As long as that state of affairs continues, APANA will continue to be a success wherever it goes. Long live the revolution!

Twelve months ago, APANA in Adelaide was feeding with UUCP from werple in Melbourne with connections to cleese.apana.org.au and hal9000.apana.org.au. hal9000, run by Mike Bruins, contributed enormously to the growth of APANA SA. Without his commitments to bringing a newsfeed into this state, at vast personal cost to himself, APANA SA probably wouldn't be IP-connected today.

In November 1993, the net topology changed to allow even greater growth. connect.com.au created a UUCP account for APANA SA. The fact that nobody had to pay STD rates any more meant that we didn't have to worry about the financial impact of adding more users, so thus began the expansion of cleese and apanix. Feb 1994 saw the enabling of APANA SA's connect.com.au TCP/IP connection. Membership on the public access systems has grown steadily ever since, while UUCP site additions are proceeding at around the same rate as before the connect link's conception.

The vast bulk of the APANA membership growth in SA since that time has been in the realm of dialup SLIP access. Permanent SLIP has also grown -- We're using two Xylogics Annexes for routing, and the growth of permanent SLIP, dedicated dialup and normal public access dialup connections has enabled us to reach the state where we're currently Telecom's largest residential customer in SA!

Mark Newton


Brisbane

Brisbane region: Leigh Hart (hart@eppie, Adelaide) visited his old home city of Brisbane in January, and convinced us that Brisbane needed APANA. After three or four months of mad planning and scheming (and trench digging - thanks guys 'n' gals!) we finally found ourselves with a 9600bps IP-connected link to the Real World.

Since then, demand has been high, and we have an ever-expanding membership in Brisbane. There are currently 10 SL/IP connected sites, a handful of UUCP sites, and several dozen users of the three public-access IP sites.

IP-viable coverage is currently limited to the 07 area, with short term plans to establish links as far south as Beenleigh and possibly the Gold Coast, and north as far as Caboolture. UUCP sites are connected from as far south as Nimbin, with plans for sites in Stanthorpe and possibly further north in the pipeline.

All in all, a most successful year to date, and looking just as promising for the next year!

Phil Homewood


Cairns

Cairns currently has five full members with a number of associate members gaining access via the BBS attached to icecave. There is continued interest in the internet in Cairns, and APANA specifically. I am doing a presentation to the PC User Group soon and hope that this will generate more interest.

The main limiting factor at the moment is the lack of an ip link. While an ip link would be nice it is really beyond the finances of APANA in Cairns to fund such a link. Perhaps this will change in the future if connect.com.au or some other commercial entity becomes involved.

Dave Freeman

Canberra

The Canberra region has increased from about 9 members to 28 members since last year. Internet Slip access has been available via the connect deal since March, with world access a few months later.

There are 3 major sites now:

Jeff Coleman


Hobart

The main event for our contribution to the annual report is the existence of Tasmanian sites. calvados.apana.org.au went live in July 1993, and was properly operating at a permanent site by January 1994. calvados has over fifty affiliate members and is now providing feeds to three other systems, including clarie which is a public access site in Launceston. Within the next few months, a further Hobart site and a site in the north west, and one on the Tasman Peninsula may join.

Negotiations at various levels have been underway for the last twelve months regarding a feed from the University of Tasmania or another provider. There may be moves on this in the next few months which will see calvados move from uucp via std in Melbourne, to dial-up slip in Hobart, and as funds permit, full time slip connection.

John Lamp


Melbourne

What a year! Eighteen months ago, we were taking our first tentative steps into the world of TCP/IP. Now we have dozens of sites permanently connected on SLIP/PPP links and providing full Internet access to something approaching a thousand people. During the year we relinquished the position of largest APANA region to Sydney, only to reclaim the lead as a flood of members joined to take advantage of the new dialup SLIP/PPP facilities.

For the record, Melbourne's connections are centred on cisco routers at two primary hubs, werple and spear, which are connected to each other and to connect.com.au by 64 kbps ISDN links. A range of private and public access systems radiate from these hubs, and many of these systems provide uucp and dial-up SLIP services.

Nick Langmaid


Northern Territory

No report was received from the Northern Territory. Activity in that region centres on Katherine where turtle, which is connected via landline to Melbourne, provides uucp connections. For further information, contact Robert Nagy

Nick Langmaid.


Sydney

12 months ago APANA Sydney, like most other APANA regions, was a primarily UUCP based network, providing mail and news access to members in NSW, with a few sites connected together via SLIP links.

Since this time, our membership base has grown from approximately 25 full members to its current size of over 150 full members. Our network now consists of over 10 IP connected sites, about half of which provide UUCP, dialup SLIP and shell accounts to APANA members. We have full IP connectivity at 9600bps via connect.com.au with a full news feed and access to gigabytes of FTP archives available via a SLIP link to Microplex. Our UUCP network, still the largest component of our overall network, extends to Tamworth, Port Macquarie, Wollongong and Tocumwal.

Our operations have been made more efficient with the formation of a Sydney Regional Committee to allow the decisions of the region to be determined along democratic lines and be represented in a reliable way to the Management Committee. This provides us with a good base for dealing with the challenges which will face the region over the coming 12 months and a mechanism for expanding the Sydney region to deal with ever increasing requirements for access from anyone interested in learning more about the Internet and public access networking in general.

Roland Turner


Shane Alderton

Administration of APANA

The rules of APANA specify that the organisation is to be managed by an elected committee with six members. At 31 August 1994, the management committee were:

The national committee, set up to discuss policy issues from a broad national perspective and make recommendations to the management committee fell into disuse during the course of the year. This led to the formation of "unofficial" regional committees in most states to make recommendations. This, in turn, has led to the proposal for formal rules to ensure that regional committees are run in an open and democratic manner. The proposal will be voted at the forthcoming general meeting of APANA.


Membership of APANA

During the second year of APANA's formal existence, our exponential growth continued at an average rate of 12% per month. This is illustrated in Table 1, which shows the total number of full members by month. Affiliate members, or users of public access systems, are not included in these numbers.

Membership Growth 1993-94
Month Ending Members
August 133
September 137
October 163
November 187
January 225
February 251
March 284
April 311
May 347
June 395
July 468
August 514
September 618

The trend towards a more even geographic distribution of the membership also continued. This is illustrated in Table 2, which shows the proportion of members in each region at the end of August 1994. (To simplify the table, members of smaller regions are included under Other.)

Membership by Region
Region Members
Adelaide 87
Brisbane 20
Cairns 6
Canberra 30
Geelong 7
Hobart 5
Melbourne 260
NT 4
Other 3
Perth 1
Sydney 195
Total 618

Nick Langmaid , Melbourne, Australia

Treasurer's Report

A couple of things to note:

Felicity Jones

Australian Public Access Network Association Inc.

Financial Position as at August, 1994

Includes Income and Expenses from July & August 1994

APANA Common Funds

Opening Balance $4,840.30

Income

Income from Members 3180.00
Other Income
Total Income $3,180.00

Expenses

Bank Charges
Legal Fees
Postage 116.35
State & Federal Taxes 14.34
Stationery 220.80
Subsidies 1500.00
Telephone 109.77
Bulk Modem Purchase SA 3000.00

Total Expenses $4,961.26

Balance APANA Common Funds $3,059.04


Aust Capital Territory

Opening Balance $531.65

Income

Income from Members 555.00
Other Income (Subsidy) 500.00
Total Income $1,055.00

Expenses

Telephone
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees 1500.00
Other Expenses Total Expenses $1,500.00
Balance ACT $86.65

Brisbane

Opening Balance $0.00

Income

Income from Members 550.00
Other (Subsidy, Transfers) 600.00
Total Income $1,150.00

Expenses

Telephone 266.20
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees 1500.00
Flyers 42.00
Total Expenses $1,808.20
Balance Brisbane ($658.20)

Cairns

Opening Balance $50.00

Income

Income from Members 200.00
Other Income (transfer) 50.00
Total Income $250.00

Expenses

Telephone
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees
Other Expenses
Total Expenses $0.00
Balance Cairns $300.00

Northern Territory

Opening Balance $0.00

Income

Income from Members 155.00
Other Income (tranfer) 50.00
Total Income $215.00

Expenses

Telephone
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees
Other Expenses
Total Expenses $0.00
Balance NT $215.00

South Australia

Opening Balance $4,893.70

Income

Income from Members 1160.00
Other Income (Subsidy) 500.00
Total Income $1,660.00

Expenses

Telephone
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees 2500.00
Bulk Modem Purchase 600.00
Total Expenses $3,100.00
Balance SA $3,453.70

Sydney

Opening Balance $3,915.50

Income

Income from Members 2030.00
Other Income (transfer) -50.00
Total Income $1,980.00

Expenses

Telephone 75.80
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees 1000.00
Newsfeed 245.00
Other Expenses
Total Expenses $1,320.80
Balance Sydney $4,574.70

Tasmania

Opening Balance $0.00

Income

Income from Members 50.00
Other Income (transfer) 100.00
Total Income $150.00

Expenses

Telephone
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees
Other Expenses
Total Expenses $0.00
Balance Tas $150.00

Victoria

Opening Balance $3,056.30

Income

Income from Members 5220.00
Other Income (transfers) -150.00
Total Income $5,070.00

Expenses

Telephone 73.63
AARNet Fees
connect.com Fees 1000.00
Other Expenses
Total Expenses $1,073.63
Balance Vic $7,052.67

Victoria IP

Opening Balance ($9,528.00)

Income

Income from Members 8160.00
Other Income (MelbPC) 7000.00
Total Income $15,160.00

Expenses

Telephone/ISDN 3092.11
Hardware Purchases
connect.com Fees 2230.84
Other Expenses
Total Expenses $5,322.95
Balance Vic IP $309.05

Other

Opening Balance $380.00

Income

Income from Members 0.00
Other Income (transfers) -200.00
Total Income ($200.00)

Expenses

Total Expenses $0.00
Balance Other $180.00


Created: Wednesday, October 11, 1995, 06:14 PM Last Updated: Wednesday, October 11, 1995, 06:14 PM