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.
- APANA contracted with connect.com.au for the provision of IP
access at budget rates,
first between APANA sites in different cities, then through proxy
to the Internet, and
finally direct connection to the Internet itself.
- The number of members has increased five-fold again this year.
More of this below.
- A number of new regions have joined APANA, including Brisbane
where an enthusiastic
group of members is growing very rapidly indeed.
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:
- capcon - unix public access/full internet...about 90
users.
- posgate - slip access/full internet.
- mana - uucp/news,mail.
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:
- First, three regions have been credited with subsidies from the
Common Funds as per tradition: South Australia, Brisbane and the
ACT. They have sufficient members to indicate that they are a
going, growing region (and the numbers as per the proposed minimum
for a region from the regionalisation info). The subsidy amount is
$500. South Australia has been around a while and should have
received this money earlier this year, but it never got to
them.
- Second, money from the "other" region has been transferred out
and into newly-formed regions, as you'll note from the report.
There are also transfers between regions that indicate money
credited to the incorrect region originally.
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