ITPA Newsletter - The Download No.9

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In this Edition:

2016 Census Data - Jobs growth booming for IT Professionals
2016 Census Data - Incomes surging over last five years for IT professionals
Through The Mill - Long-Term Member Profile: Hal Miller
From the Fifth Estate - a media watch on the IT industry
Don’t miss our Short Courses!
How to become a Certified Practicing Member
ITPA Advice Forums

Hi <<First Name>>,

As we are putting this latest ITPA newsletter together, NBN Co has warned of 6-9-month delays in the rollout of its Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) connections which are expected to service nearly three million people under current configurations.

The delay is so that NBN can fix current higher-than-acceptable dropout rates and slow speeds that have plagued the 370,000 connections made via HFC connections so far.

According to NBN, 1.1 per cent of all HFC connections have been suffering from repeated, random dropouts and this needs to be fixed before they continue the roll-out.

It is completely unsurprising that NBN Co. has had an issue with this compromised technology mix but quite a refreshing change that they're publicly acknowledging it and promising to do something about it. This has not happened in the past.

I think it is a better outcome to actually slow down rollout to ensure that the end-user experience is better. Either NBN Co. is finally changing its tune and trying to offer a compelling product to satisfy users, or the internal pain from complaints about these issues has become the squeaky wheel requiring grease.

NBN’s rollout of HFC has been plagued with issues from the very start. Many users have suffered poor performance with some also users suffering unreliable (or in many cases non-existent) connectivity.

Some of these are general to NBN connectivity (for example, RSPs under-provisioning back-haul because of the exorbitant CVC charging model) but also because the technology (as part of the multi-technology mess, sorry, mix) was rushed into the network for political, rather than technical reasons.

Meanwhile, the Optus HFC network (which NBN purchased at great expense) was so bad that they've effectively written it off. This means that all HFC services are carried on the Telstra network which is effectively the old Foxtel cable TV map.

This network had worked reasonably well under Telstra’s management, but it was never designed for multi-vendor access, and the rollout was based on a high downstream vs upstream bandwidth ratio.

A 100Mbps downstream service under Telstra offers only about 2.5Mbps upstream whereas under the NBN, it needs to be offering up to 16 times the upstream bandwidth.

Of course, this gamut of issues with HFC can be directly tied back to insufficient planning prior to implementation. It is caused by the political expediency applied to the project when the current coalition Federal Government decided to play football with our national broadband infrastructure.

In short, there was insufficient thought given to the technical details and ramifications of its implementations and what that shows is that the whole NBN has become a shemozzle and I expect there to be other significant halts in the future as some form of sanity is returned to the project.

Unfortunately, that is going to come with continued delays to completion and more cost blow-outs as the public purse sends good money after bad.

Upgrade your ITPA membership NOW!

Cheers.

Robert Hudson,
ITPA President

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ITPA's analysis of employment data collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) via the 2016 Census shows that the number of people working in the IT industry has grown by 20 per cent in five years.

ITPA's analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics data collected in the 2016 Census shows that while IT wages grew very modestly between the 2006-2011 returns, there has been significant growth in average incomes from 2011-2016.

Hal Miller is not a name that many of you will have heard but his nomadic life and contribution to the IT industry is full of interesting anecdotes and notable achievements including being the founding father of SAGE-AU - the precursor to ITPA.

What the Media is talking about

A somewhat irreverent look at some of the media chatter on the IT industry that has been happening over the last month.

Don’t miss our Short Courses!
One of the exciting new services we will be offering as the ITPA is quarterly, free, online Short Courses. The courses will normally be five weeks in duration with four weeks of study followed by an optional assessment in the 5th week.

In most cases, they will be advanced ‘500 level’ courses designed for experienced IT Pros and will be delivered by senior ITPA Members and or third-party industry experts.

ITPA's short courses are the foundation stones of our commitment to professional development an a pathway to Certified Practising Member status, so get keen and get registered.

So far, we are planning to run Short courses on the following:

IP6 Masterclass
Configuration Management
Cisco CCNA v3
Pen Testing Masterclass

If you have ideas for other Short Courses you think will be relevant to skills development for the membership, get in touch with ITPA via: sponsorship@itpa.org.au

Membership Growth: ITPA is Delivering Value
Since launching in November 2016, ITPA's membership numbers have grown rapidly to now be over 17,000.

As part of our professional development and skills verification agenda ITPA offers an official certification program for practicing members.

In a similar way to which accountants or other professionals need to continue improving and demonstrating their skill sets to retain their accreditation, ITPA offers a Certified Practicing Member (CPM) level of membership.

With the cost of an individual membership only $165 per year, you should really think about making that commitment, getting involved with ITPA and taking advantage of the knowledge sharing and credibility benefits that come with being a member.

For all information on ITPA membership levels, see the dedicated section of the website including specific information about the CPM program

ITPA Advice Forums

One of the most valuable services currently offered to ITPA financial members is the Advice Forums which are hosted on the MyITPA section of the ITPA website. This service offers members the opportunity to engage and share knowledge with other ITPA members through reading and contributing comments on a range of subjects that are industry-based, technical or otherwise of interest to members.
Once logged in, members can start new threads, pose questions, answer questions or just engage in conversation with their industry peers. This peer review ensures that information shared is accurate and up-to-date while the closed nature of the lists means that members can ask questions without fear of reprisal for sharing information in a public domain.
The Forums receive an average of 22 posts per day and this is expected to grow rapidly in line with an expanding number of financial members under the new ITPA umbrella.
Below are some recent topics that have been discussed: