Internet Direct

The internet is now a critical business tool, letting you communicate between multiple sites, customers, partners and suppliers - both domestically and globally. But increasing use and the growth of rich media can mean greater network congestion and less reliable performance, impacting productivity, customer experience and revenues. Internet Direct can overcome these issues through a high-grade solution that can guarantee availability, scalability and 24/7 support:

Carrier grade connectivity
Enjoy a dedicated connection to one of the largest Tier 1 internet backbones in Australia with more Points of Presence (PoPs) for fast, reliable access.

High performance
Avoid congestion and configuration issues, gain high levels of availability and security, and better reach across all Australian capitals and many regional areas.

Tailor a solution to suit
Internet Direct offers a wide range of access types, speeds and usage options to suit your needs - including the option of IPv6 addressing.

Cost-efficient internet access
Our fixed pricing plans only count downloaded traffic and can be used with almost any application. The simple monthly fee includes ongoing service, whilst hardware and other value-added services are available with some offerings.

Work with the experts
If you would like further information on Telstra Internet Direct solutions for your business, you can email us, Phone us on 1800 334 884 or contact your Telstra Business Account Representative.

Choose the right option for you

We offer a wide range of high-speed, business-grade internet access options designed to meet your budget and business requirements.

Features include:

• Dedicated internet access – fast, reliable service without congestion
• Numerous internet access options – includes ADSL, Ethernet Lite, Megalink, Frame Relay, IP WAN, Connect IP, E-Line and Ethernet (with the exception of satellite and cable)
• Range of internet speeds – from 64kbps with Frame Relay right through to 1Gbps with Ethernet and 10gbps with E-Line
• Online tools – analyse and manage your service
• Online bill – secure online statement of charges
• Fault reporting – expert advice with 24/7 fault reporting
• Static IP addressing including the option of IPv6 addressing (not available with all access types – check telstra.com/enterprise/IPv6)
• Inbuilt security – plus you can choose additional services from our security portfolio
• Optional extras – facilities for e-commerce, web page creation and backup mail servers
• Premium packages available, either using your own equipment or Cisco equipment supplied by us.

Here you will find information on how to make the most of your Internet Direct service, such as how to manage your routing using Border Gateway Protocol, manage DNS configurations, and other related technical issues.

Telstra Internet Direct offers news services

All Internet Direct customers are automatically given access to the Network News Reader Protocol (NNRP) server, reader.news.telstra.net. Access is granted to any IP address issued to customers by Telstra Internet Direct and to any network which customers have asked us to route to them.

Border Gateway Protocol

Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is a dynamic routing protocol that allows Autonomous Systems (differentiated by an AS number) to control how their networks are advertised to the rest of the internet. An autonomous system is a set of routers sharing a routing policy and generally running under a single technical administration. To the rest of the world, an AS is viewed as a single entity.

Customers connecting to Telstra Internet Direct who are multi-homed (ie. customers who have multiple upstream service providers or multiple services to Internet Direct) and who have a minimum bandwidth for each service of 64kbps, may choose to implement BGP (version 4) on their routers in order to peer with Telstra. If a customer has multiple upstream service providers, they will need to use a non-private AS number in the peering configuration. If the customer is connected to the Internet only via Telstra Internet Direct, a private AS number can be assigned. If a customer needs a public AS number, they can apply online at www.apnic.net. Any costs involved in obtaining an AS number from APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) are available from the APNIC web site.

Please note: BGP is not available on Modem or ADSL services connected to Internet Direct.

When requesting a BGP peering session with Telstra Internet Direct, a number of options are available depending on the amount of network information required. The options are:

• No routing information - this is advisable for small-end routers with low memory
• Default only - a single announcement of the network 0.0.0.0/0 to the customer
• Domestic routes - routes originating mostly in Australia
• Full routing – if there’s an in excess of 200,000 individual routes and the network requires a router with 128Mb or more of memory (not advisable for services of less than 256k bandwidth).

The last option requires 2 BGP peering sessions to be configured since access routers do not carry the full BGP table.

You can send your BGP Routing activation request to bgp@telstra.net

Note: bgp@telstra.net does not provide support for general queries or changes.

Please provide the following information in your email:

• Company name
• Billing number
• Basic Carriage Service FNN number or Service FNN number or the ops handle for the service
• Autonomous System number (AS number)
• Your BPG Peering address (specify the number of hops if it is not directly connected)
• A list of the networks you wish to advertise to Telstra in CIDR format (ie. x.x.x.x/x)
• The announcements you wish to see from Telstra (See above).

Note: The Telstra Internet Direct AS number is 1221.

Domain Name Services

Domain Name Resolution (Resolvers)
Telstra Internet Direct provides two resolvers or forwarding DNS servers, which are recursive, caching only nameservers. The purpose of this service is to improve the time it takes to perform a DNS lookup by caching the requested domain name information on the first request and to serve that information from the local cache for subsequent requests.

To use this service, configure your DNS settings with the nameserver addresses in the table below:

Please consult the configuration information relevant to your system, as the specific command will vary across software environments.

Primary Domain Name System (DNS) Server
Internet Direct can host a DNS server for you. This service is available to customers who do not wish to host their domain on their own DNS server and allows for the flexible administration of their domain. For more information or to configure a domain enter CustData (available to customers only).

Secondary Domain Name System (DNS)
Internet Direct can act as a secondary or slave host for a customer’s domain. This service will mirror the domain information on the domain’s primary host. For more information or to configure our servers to act as a secondary server for your domain enter CustData (available to customers only).

Secondary Mail (MX) Server

Internet Direct provides a secondary mail server (secondary MX server) that can act as a back-up should your own primary mail server fail. The benefit of this option is that in the event that your primary mail host (Mail Transfer Agent - MTA) is not available to receive email, the originator of the email has the option to send the mail to the secondary MX relay host, which will, in turn, continue to try to deliver the mail for up to five days. In recent times, due to the large amount of spam and virus content in email, some customers have implemented filtering policy for certain offending sites on their own MTA gateways.

If you have such an implementation and also use the secondary MX system, you need to be aware that the originator may attempt delivery through the secondary MX relays, in which case the offending email may still get through the policy filters on your primary host. Accordingly, Telstra recommends that if you wish to filter sites at your primary MTAs that you should remove your secondary MX entries for your sites from the DNS to avoid the possibility of offending mail being relayed to your MTAs through the Telstra servers.

For more information or to configure our servers to act as a secondary server for your domain enter CustData (available to customers only).