Proposals for NZNOG 2025 talks are currently being accepted. Please see the Call For Presentations.

Below are the talks we have currently accepted, in the order they were received.

Jon Brewer - Communications Resilience

Telco2

This talk explores how infrastructure mapping can be used to identify vulnerabilities, assess risks, and enhance the resilience of telecommunications networks. We look at data collection and maintenance strategies, mapping dependencies such as shared power transformers and single-road access routes, and visualising hazards including fault lines, liquefaction zones, and landslide-prone areas.

Jon Brewer is a recovering network operator. Today he consults on network design, build, operation, and regulation in Asia and the Pacific.

Geoff Huston - DNS Resolvers and Nameservers in New Zealand

APNIC

The selection of which authoritative DNS server to use by a user’s DNS resolver of choice greatly determines the user experience when accessing the Internet.

In the past some studies have looked at the behaviour of a set of implementations describing how they perform authoritative server selection and how they re-evaluate their choices in time. Other studies have leveraged the RIPE Atlas infrastructure to observe DNS resolution of a researcher-owned domain name from various points on the Internet.

We extend and complement these studies by using APNIC’s distributed ad system to recruit several million end-users throughout the global Internet to observer the resolution selection process, and then we look at a couple of domain name sets to see how they have been provisioned against the noted reseover behaviours. The first name set we use of the top level domain name set in the root zone, and the second set is the .nz domains listed in the Tranco top 1M dpomain name set.

Thomas Weible - Analyzing network reliability up to 800G - Impact of SNR thresholds on BER for Coherent (16QAM) and Non-Coherent (PAM4) high speed transceivers under environmental variations

Flexoptix

This presentation investigates the proximity to a low Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) threshold that can still maintain a tolerable Bit Error Rate (BER) in 100G / 400G / 800G network links. Additionally, we account for factors such as temperature and cable length to predict the duration for which a reliable network connection can be sustained between transceivers. The analysis, based on data retrieved using a Flexbox, focuses on comparing the reliability of coherent (16QAM) and non-coherent (PAM4) transceivers, with a detailed discussion on the implications of these technologies on network performance.

Thomas Weible is the creative brain of FLEXOPTIX. A real rebel who dreams up innovations such as the FLEXBOX. He dives deep into the inner life of optics and loves experimenting on real-life problems with our customers. For more than 17 years he has been part of the internet community and has specialized in optical networking.

Shane Alcock - We’re not in Kansas anymore: my experiences with IP geolocation

Alcock Network Intelligence, IODA

Problems with IP geolocation are nothing new to the operator community; customers who have been incorrectly geo-blocked from content are a regular source of complaints. But what is it like to be a consumer of IP geolocation data? Are we able to get useful insights from the data? What are the issues that make this data difficult to work with? Why is it so damn hard to get IP geolocation right?

In this talk, I’ll elaborate on my experiences with IP geolocation data within the IODA (Internet Outage Detection and Analysis) system, where we try to attribute observed Internet outages to the geographic regions where they occur. I hope to both enlighten the NZNOG audience about how IP geolocation datasets are derived and document some of the many gotchas that I have encountered along the way, which may be useful to anyone else considering using geolocation data in the future.

Shane is a software developer who specializes in building systems to measure the Internet. He spent many years with the WAND Group at the University of Waikato, and now divides his time between the Internet Intelligence Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology (contributing to the IODA and GRIP projects) and SearchLight here in New Zealand (looking after OpenLI).

Anna Lezhikova - The Weakest Link in the Modern Cyber Threat Landscape

CyberFern

Cyber threats are scarier than ever—hackers are getting creative, and it feels like we’re one click away from disaster. But here’s the truth: the biggest threat is often the person sitting right next to you. Whether it’s falling for a phishing email, leaving passwords on sticky notes, or just not updating that software—humans are usually the weak link in the cyber chain. In this session, we’ll take a closer look at how our habits and behaviors contribute to the rise in cyber breaches, both personally and in business. It’s not all doom and gloom, though! The solution lies in cultivating a security-first mindset and fostering a culture where security is everyone’s responsibility. After all, securing our digital lives isn’t just about tech—it’s about us. Let’s explore how we can all play a part in defending against the growing wave of cyber threats.

Anna Lezhikova is a cyber security consultant based in Wellington, New Zealand. She combines her experience in sociology, business management, communications, and IT to help companies to run and grow their business securely in the digital age. Armed with a Master’s degree in Sociology, an MBA, and a Diploma in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Anna’s expertise is fortified by practical know-how as a full-stack and DevSecOps engineer. This unique blend equips her with the capability to see problems from different perspectives and come up with holistic solutions.

Daniel Hutchins - Passive Optical Networking

Ciena

Passive Optical Networking (PON) has become the de-facto method to deliver high speed broadband in most markets globally.

In this session we’ll recap the basics of PON, where the industry currently stands in terms of standards and deployments, and discuss how PON continues to evolve beyond 10G to enable higher speeds and support ever increasing traffic demands.

Mark Smith - IP Quirks and Features

The Internet Protocols have evolved over many years since the original “A Protocol for Packet Network Intercommunication” paper in May 1974, by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn.

In my time with IP, since the early 1990s, having used it, deployed it and taught it, I’ve found knowing some of the history of IP’s features and evolution both interesting and quite useful to know when operating IP networks. It can help explain why some things are far more complex than you would think they should have ever been designed to be.

I was also involved in networking in the 1990s multi-protocol era when other layer 3 protocols such as Novell’s IPX and Apple’s Appletalk were widely deployed.

I’ve been involved in the two main IPv6 working groups in the IETF since 2002. Knowing about the design and evolution of IP and other 1980s/90s protocols like Novell’s IPX have helped me better understand IPv6’s design goals and also how it was designed to be deployed.

In this presentation I’ll cover these sorts of past IP and similar protocol evolutions and features, in a broader context of and related to IPv6. Some examples of the topics - Why did it take 825 RFCs before ARP was developed? Why did IPv4 addressing become so complicated? How come IPv6 addresses became 128 bits when its ancestor, the Simple Internet Protocol, was 64 bits, and that was considered big enough?

Mark has been working in the industry since the early 1990s, starting out in desktop PCs and servers, and then switched over to networking in 1998. Since that time he has worked at a number of networked organisations, covering enterprises, network integrators and telcos and ISPs.

Mark has been a regular presenter at the AusNOG conference since 2011, presented at the NZNOG conference in 2020 and 2023, and at the APNIC conference in 2020, and has written a number of articles for the APNIC blog.

He has been participating in the IETF since 2002, primarily in the IPv6 working groups.

Craig Young, Vivian Chandra - Resilient and Inclusive Networks: Ensuring communication for all in all times

TUANZ

In an increasingly interconnected world, networks are essential for our daily lives. We rely on them for everything from basic communication to essential services such as healthcare, education, and emergency response. When disaster strikes, resilient networks become even more critical. They enable us to stay in touch with loved ones, access vital information, and coordinate relief efforts.

It is not enough for networks to be resilient; they must also be inclusive. This means that they must be accessible and usable by all members of society, regardless of their background, abilities, or location.

This presentation will explore the challenges that some communities and populations face in accessing and using networks. It will also discuss the steps that network operators can take to make their networks more inclusive.

Craig Young is the CEO of TUANZ, where he advocates for policies that support the growth and success of the tech sector. He has extensive experience in the New Zealand telecommunications industry and is passionate about ensuring that all New Zealanders have access to reliable and robust communication networks.

Vivian Chandra is a tech strategist who has a particular passion for education and tech inequity. For the past decade, she has been working with schools and kura nationwide to upskill their kaiako (teachers) in digital technologies and fluency. She is currently the co-director of Ally Skills Aotearoa, an organisation that works with forward-thinking companies to create inclusive, high-performance teams. Vivian is a 2nd degree black belt in karate, and volunteers as an instructor at her club, helping to foster the next generation of karateka.

Phil Carlisle - Implementing Precision Timing / Sync as a Service in a Telecommunications Network

Chorus

The availability of an accurate clock source is becoming critical to a many industries. These include Mobile Telecommunication networks, Power networks, financial institutions among others.

To date, most applications use a GNSS (GPS + other navigation systems) receiver to provide an accurate source of frequency and or time. There are two potential issues with this approach: cost and vulnerability.

Deploying GNSS clocks can involve the installation of a clock device as well as an antenna and associated cabling. This can be expensive – especially when deployed on a large scale such as with mobile or power networks. GNSS Clocks are vulnerable to jamming and spoofing, Space weather and other threats.

Another approach, to provide access to an accurate clock source, is via a robust terrestrial network using IEEE1588v2 and SyncE.

Chorus has been investigating this concept as well as conducting laboratory and customer trials. This presentation looks at the implications of rolling out precision timing across the Chorus Network.

Phil works as a Network Architect for Optical Transport Systems and Access Networks at Chorus NZ Ltd. He holds a Batchelor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering and has over 30 years of experience in the Telecommunications industry.

He manages the architecture and high-level design for Core, Metro and Access DWDM systems and had key involvement with the introduction of XGS-PON technology in the Chorus network.

Paul Radford - DNSSEC for .nz: post-incident recovery and improvement (or, how to see the train coming down the tunnel next time. For sure.)

InternetNZ

The .nz DNSSEC incident brought home how little observability we really had of our .nz zone output. We had checks that proved every zone file was internally consistent, but none of those checks took into account how caching recursive DNS servers affected queries and DNSSEC validation in the real world. InternetNZ has since built a comprehensive “fake root” validation system with caching recursive servers involved, so that we can validate our zone outputs in scenarios that closely match real-world scenarios, thereby ensuring our zone files won’t have negative side effects before they are released into the wild.

Paul’s been at InternetNZ for nearly 8 years, currently as a senior sysadmin. Over 25 years of Linux and networking experience. He presented at NZNOG 2011: way, way back.

Matthew Thurbon - AI Networking, UltraEthernet, the road to 1.6T and beyond.

Arista

The critical networking demands of AI applications are driving the requirements for high bandwidth, large-scale, low latency, and energy-efficient networks. This presentation explores the key design requirements for AI and HPC networking, and the emergence of UltraEthernet as an open-standards driven solution by the UltraEthernet Consortium (UEC). The latest advancements in optics will be explored, focusing on the transformative impact of standards based LPO (Linear Optical Pluggable) transceivers and the latest advancements in 800GbE and 1.6TbE that enable next-generation AI Interconnect performance. This presentation is designed for networking architects, data center operators, and AI/HPC infrastructure teams seeking to understand how AI network fabrics are built, and the technical advancements shaping the future of high-performance Ethernet networking.

Currently working as a Systems Engineering Team Lead at Arista Networks, with over 30 years experience in the ICT industry.

Rusdy Krisman - AI-Powered Telco SecOps Use Cases

Fortinet

Traditional ways of dealing with security incidents and remediations are no longer meeting the scope, complexity, and regulatory response timeframes. AI-powered SecOps enables telco operators and service providers to deliver faster incident detection, response, and reporting for better visibility, detection, and compliance.

Wayne Reiher - Challenges in simulating LEO satellite networks like Starlink

UoA

Simulating Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) satellites is relatively straightforward, as these satellites appear stationary from a ground station’s perspective, resulting in constant data rates and latency. Similarly, Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellites exhibit generally stable latencies and data rates, though with lower overall latency than GEO systems. In contrast, Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks present more complex simulation challenges due to their dynamic characteristics. Multiple factors contribute to their variable latencies and data rate profiles, including continuous satellite movement, frequent client handovers between satellites, inter-satellite link switchovers, fluctuating satellite load due to changing ground client sets, complex routing, algorithms, constellation design, etc. Our current initiative focuses on enhancing our existing hardware-based GEO and MEO satellite simulator to accommodate LEO network simulation. This requires continuous updates to netem delay and token bucket filter parameters in real time to replicate the changing latencies and data rates that ground stations experience. This talk discusses the challenge this poses in an extensive physical hardware setup with around 150 devices.

Wayne Reiher is a PhD student at the School of Computer Science at the University of Auckland. His research area is in satellite communications, particularly the measurement and simulation of the performance of low earth orbit networks in the Pacific Island context. He is also on leave from his position as the National Director of ICT for the Government of Kiribati.