This past year has been one of great change for the N.T. The region grew quickly and needed better links than the 28.8k leased line we had into the Melbourne Hub.
At that time, Melbourne had no plans to upgrade and let it be known that they would not accommodate ISDN links into the hub.
We made the move to Telstra at a great cost and luckily the schools that we had previously refused connection (as it was against the rules of APANA) became "customers" which to allowed us to get our new connection.
This effectively meant the end of turtle.apana.
The apana spirit is not dead however. The new commercial venture has accommodated all apana members for as long as they required it and negotiations are underway with a BBS sysop who may be ready to take his members onto the Internet via the apana ideals.
It has been regrettably that the NT couldn't stay within apana fully and regrettable also that within 1 month of our connecting to Telstra the Melbourne hub did massively upgrade.
There was also a period of some 4 months when we could not get a new Class C for the NT. By this stage many original apana memberships had lapsed.
We have confidence that the new sysop (in Darwin) will take on the role of apana co-ordinator releasing us from a possible conflict of interest and allowing fresh blood into the organisation.
Now that topend.com.au has points of presence in Alice Springs, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin we would be able to arrange reliable feeds for apana members throughout the entire Northern Territory.