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APANA Sydney Network Access Services and Contribution Rates

The Sydney region of APANA offers general internet access (via a range of different connection methods) and other related services to any individual or non-profit organisation who wishes to join and become a member.

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Network Access Option and Service Details

This section details the three network access options offered by APANA Sydney to members, along with some additional services. All contribution rates shown include GST.

The table below is a brief summary of the different connection methods we currently support, but you should refer to the full descriptions below to find out all the details pertaining to each option:

APANA Sydney Member Network Services for 2005
APANA National Membership Fee of $12 Payable Annually by All Members. All APANA Sydney Member Network Service Contributions are Payable in Advance. All APANA Contribution Rates for Membership and Network Services include GST.
Access Option Name	Contribution rate for 12, 6 or 3 Months			Setup Fee	MB Limit	Session Limit	Email Addresses	IP Addresses	Servers Allowed	Notes
1(a) - V.90 (up to 56k) Dial-up	$237.60	$118.80	$59.40	n/a	unlimited	8 hrs	one	1 (dynamic)	no	1
1(b) - V.34bis (up to 33.6k) Dial-up	$198.00	$99.00	$49.50	n/a	unlimited	8 hrs	one	1 (dynamic)	no	1
2(a) - Dedicated V.90 Connection	$594.00	$297.00	$148.50	$49.50	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	6 (3-bit subnet)	yes	1, 2, 3
2(b) - Dedicated ISDN Connection	$594.00	$297.00	$148.50	$49.50	unlimited	unlimited	unlimited	6 (3-bit subnet)	yes	1, 2, 3, 5
3 - Email Only (POP3/IMAP or UUCP)	$75	n/a	n/a	$49.50	n/a	n/a	up to 4	n/a	n/a	1, 4
4 - ADSL (coming soon!)	tba	tba	tba	tba	unlimited	unlimited	tba	6 (3-bit subnet)	yes	1
Website Hosting	$75	n/a	n/a	$49.50	unlimited	n/a	n/a	n/a	n/a	1, 4
Note 1: The APANA National Membership contribution of $12 per year is payable annually by all members. This contribution is seperate from and in addition to APANA Sydney region network access contribution rates. Note 2: Month-by-month renewals are not available for V.90 dial-up, V.34bis dial-up or V.90/ISDN dedicated connection services unless you would like to sign up for direct-debit. Otherwise you can elect to be sent a renewal notice every 3, 6, or 12 months and you will be billed at the rates indicated in the table above dependent on which renewal option you choose. Note 3: Dedicated V.90 and ISDN connections are allocated a 3-bit-subnet (giving up to 6 usable IP addresses) as part of the basic service. A 4-bit subnet, giving up to 14 usable IP addresses, is available, as an optional extra. Cost is $25 per year extra. Note 4: The email-only (option 3) service can be used on it's own, or it can be combined with website hosting to provide up to 4 APANA Sydney email addresses that can be used with a website hosted by us. Note 5: ISDN dedicated connections with access-option 2(b) are single-channel 64 Kbps using one leased port. Data-over-Voice is supported allowing you to use Telstra ISDN Home with non-time-charged calls (ask for more info if you aren't sure what this means). 128 Kbps ISDN is available too - just subscribe to access-option 2(b) twice and two leased ports will be set up to provide a multilink aggregated 128 kbps ISDN connection.

Access Option # 1: Dial-up using an Analog Modem

(1a: V.90 (up to 56 Kbps) - $237.60 per year [equivalent to $19.80 per month])
(1b: V.34bis (up to 33.6 Kbps) - $198.00 per year [equivalent to $16.50 per month])

Part-time dial-up access is the basic type of network access that's suitable if you're not after a full-time (ie. dedicated) connection to the Internet.

There are two choices with this option - V.90 (up to 56 Kbps) via our pool of leased ports, or V.34bis (up to 33.6 Kbps) via our Jedi POP which is based in Waterfall (Sutherland Shire).

If you'd like to know more about what access services are provided by the MA sites for members using a part-time dial-up account, please read the access services for option 1 members located further down this page.

Access Option # 2: Dedicated (V.90 / ISDN) Connection

(2a: Dedicated V.90 (up to 56 Kbps) - $594.00 per year [equivalent to $49.50 per month] + $49.50 once-off setup fee)
(2b: Dedicated ISDN (64 Kbps) - $594.00 per year [equivalent to $49.50 per month] + $49.50 once-off setup fee)

A dedicated connection is an alternative to access option 1 where full-time network connectivity is or can be required at low cost.

There are two choices with this option - V.90 (up to 56 Kbps) via our pool of leased ports, or ISDN (64 Kbps) using Data-over-Voice. If you decide to use ISDN (for example, if your area does not have ADSL or the analog phone lines limit connections to 26 Kbps or less), you can use Data-over-Voice with a Telstra ISDN Home service at your end to take advantage of untimed data-over-voice call capability of the ISDN Home service. Special equipment is needed to use ISDN so if you're not sure, please ask and we'll give you some advice.

If you would like to use a 128 Kbps ISDN connection, this requires two leased ports (one for each 64 Kbps ISDN B-channel) so just subscribe to this access option twice. You will need appropriate equipment at your end to make use of both 64 Kbps B-channels of your ISDN Home service together if you decide to go along this route. Ask us for help if you are not sure.

The key features of a dedicated connection are: - There are no time limits and no download limits, - Up to 6 fixed real IP addresses in a 3-bit subnet are allocated for you. This means you can have up to 6 devices with their own fixed real IP address on your local network. - No restrictions on how many email addresses you can use or on the number of systems you can have using the connection. - A 4-bit subnet space can be requested. The cost for this is an additional $25 per year.

A dedicated IP connection allows an unlimited number of email addresses to be used on your own machine(s).

You should read the technical notes to find out what's involved before committing to a dedicated connection if you haven't set one up before. Also check the important notes about modems further down this page.

Access Option # 3: Email Only (POP3/IMAP or UUCP)

($75.00 per year + $49.50 once-off joining fee)

The email-only option does not provide any dial-in connection access, or login account. It is strictly for email hosting only and provides up to four POP3/IMAP mailboxes or can be used with our Jedi POP for UUCP.

If you subscribe to our website hosting service you can add this service to provide some local POP3/IMAP mailboxes to your website if you would like us to take care of your website's email requirements as well.

Access Option # 4: ADSL (Coming Soon)

($xxx per year [equivalent to $yyy per month] + $99.00 once-off setup fee)

ADSL connections are a service which we are currently investigating at the moment. An announcement will be made when pricing and plans are ready.

We are aiming to have fixed-price plans available to offer ADSL at 256/64, 512/128 and 1500/256 Kbps data rates, with no limited on downloads, and traffic shaping after downloads reach a pre-set reasonable quota.

The key features of an ADSL dedicated connection are: - An ADSL connection is always on, meaning that there is no 'dialling' needed to establish a link. Unlike cable broadband Internet services, ADSL does not suffer from contention losses, etc. - Once your phone line is approved for use with ADSL, you can use your normal analog fixed-line phone at the same time as being online by using a simple filter device. - Up to 6 fixed real IP addresses in a 3-bit subnet are allocated for you. This means you can have up to 6 devices with their own fixed real IP address on your local network. - A 4-bit subnet space can be requested. The cost for this is an additional $25 per year.

You should read the technical notes to find out what's involved, and get some ideas about what sort of equipment you need at your end, before committing to a dedicated connection if you haven't set one up before.

Other Services:

Additional Services such as website hosting are also available to non-profit organisations and educational bodies.

Website Hosting:
($75.00 per year + $49.50 setup fee [+ domain registration/renewal fee])

Any non-profit organisation, educational body or individual can set up a website within a dial-in account or on a machine connected via a dedicated link, but to create a unique identity for a website a special domain name (such as 'www.yourclub.org.au') can be registered if it's available and used to set up a virtual hosting arrangement so the website can be accessed directly using special domain name.

Before a website can operate using a special domain name, the desired domain name needs to be registered with your choice of domain registry (we recommend NetRegistry but the choice is yours) providing it is not already registered by someone else. You can check if a domain name you'd like to use is available from NetRegistry's domain registration page.

[ Keep in mind that because we do not allow purely commercial use of our network (refer to the Acceptable Use Policy), domains in the .com.au, .com and other commercially-associated business-related namespaces aren't encouraged by us. ]

Depending on the nature of the proposed website, a domain name for it can registered in one of the following non-business namespaces:

• - .org.au - for Australian charities or non-profit organisations such as sporting and special-interest clubs,
  
• - .asn.au - for Australian incorporated associations as well as non-profit organisations such as political parties, trade unions, sporting and special-interest clubs,
  
• - .id.au - for individuals who are Australian citizens or residents only,
  
• - .edu.au - for Australian educational bodies registered at federal or state level,
  
• - .org - for any non-profit organisation which is not able to register the desired .org.au or .asn.au domain name,
  
• - .info - an alternative which to .org domain names,
  
• - .name - an alternative which to .org domain names,
  

For more info about registering domain names, check out any auDA-accredited Australian domain name registrar, or ask us for advice.

Note that if you would like to set up a 'www.site.domain[.au]' name, you actually need to register the 'site.domain[.au]' name. This is then used to set up email forwarding (ie. the 'MX' record) if required. A website does not have to use a 'www.' prefixed name - it can use the same name without that prefix if that's what you prefer.

We have a reciprocal DNS sharing agreement with the Hunter region of APANA in order to take care of the requirement to have two seperate name servers set up to host the domain records before delegation will be allowed.

Our website virtual hosting service can to be used in combination with access option 1 (dial-up) if the website files associated with a domain name will be located in a member's dial-up account, or with access option 2 (V.90/ISDN dedicated connection) or 4 (ADSL) if a website's files will be located on a machine situated on a network utilising one of our dedicated connection options.

The service can also be combined with access option 3 (POP3/IMAP mailbox) if the only additional service required is email hosting and no direct account login facility (other than for uploading website changes) is needed. It can also be used by itself if no email access within our network is required.

The APANA Sydney hostmaster is responsible for looking our our DNS zone files and can answer any technical questions you might have about domain-name servers.

Additional Notes:

Membership of APANA Sydney provides voting rights in all APANA Sydney region, as well as national, APANA elections. Please read the Rules of APANA carefully to learn more about this.

The regional committee reviews the contribution rates roughly once per year. Changes to contribution rates are announced in the apana.general and apana.syd.general newsgroups when they become necessary.

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Dial-up Access Services for Option 1 Members

The following dial-up access services are offered by our region's Jedi POP and leased V.90/56k ports for members who choose access option 1:

Unix Command Shell: (Jedi POP only!)

A Unix shell is a text-based command line driven interface to the host machine's operating system - the most basic level of access for a regular user. Typically the range of shell applications offered will include the Bourne shell (standard offered with every version of the Unix operating system across all hardware platforms), along with extended freeware shells such as Bash (from the Free Software Foundation) and tcsh.

Shell's give you access to all standard features of Unix, including email, news, telnet (for outgoing use only), ftp, compilers and other related applications. Graphical applications cannot be used via a shell however - you need to use a PPP connection for that.

If you're unfamiliar with Unix then a shell login may not be the ideal for you, but it is the most fundamental way to interact with a Unix style of operating system and experience using Unix from a shell level is an important, highly-desirable and respected skill to gain.

You can also access a shell/login account remotely using Secure Shell. Access via telnet is not available because of security risks associated with having Telnet access enabled.

TCP/IP using PPP: (Jedi POP and Leased V.90/56k Ports!)

If you want more than what a regular Unix shell can offer, all member-access sites also provide TCP/IP using PPP which allows your machine to temporarily become part of the APANA Sydney network for the time you are logged in.

This gives you access to all regular Internet services (email, news, compilers, etc.) via utilities which act as wrappers around standard Unix applications and shells, plus the ability to use your machine's graphical operating environment to run multi-media and networking applications without any extra dedicated hardware requirements.

Your machine does not require a fixed IP address as the host site you connect to will allocate one for your connection when the PPP software is started.

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Important Notes About Analog Modems, Leased Ports, and using V.90/56k-Capable Modems for Dial-up and Dedicated Connections

The analog modems used with our Jedi POP are NetComm ProRack industrial-quality rack-modem cards. These modems do not support V.90/56k connections due to the high costs of the special equipment and telco services that are needed to directly support V.90/56k connections. Those costs are well beyond our reach as a non-profit organisation with a limited budget.

To get around this, we have a managed pool of leased V.90 dial-up ports (supplied by a commercial provider via their equipment, etc.) which does support V.90/56k connections! Since these ports cost significantly more that normal analog phone lines, the contribution rate for dial-up access via these leased ports is slightly more but the benefit in terms of much faster download speeds (depending of course on phone line conditions, etc.) far outweighs the slightly increased contribution rate!

[ The leased ports also support ISDN, which is why the contribution rate for 64 kbps dedicated connections using DoV-based ISDN is the same as the rate for V.90 dedicated connections using an analog modem! ]

With all of this, remember that V.90/56k modems cannot increase the upstream data rate beyond the maximum of 33.6 Kbps and if a commercial ISP tells you otherwise they are lying to you. 8-) V.90/56k-capable modems only increase the downstream data rate due to the way the V.90 protocol is designed, which in other words means faster downloads compared to V34.bis (up to 33.6 Kbps) modems. The upstream data rate will always be the same regardless of whether you use a modem capable of V.90/56k connections or not, and the upstream and downstream data rates are always variable according to the physical and electrical characteristics of your phone line.

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