Nigeria needs Internet Registry – Rudman

Managing Director, Internet eXchange Point Nigeria Limited (IXNP), Mr. Muhammed Rudman, has advocated for the establishment of a National Internet Registry (NIR) to oversee the management of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses in the country.

Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to devices participating in a computer network that use the Internet to communicate with each other. Also referred to as ‘IP number’ or just ‘IP,’ this code usually consists of numbers separated by three dots that identifies a particular computer on the Internet. IP started with IP version 4 (IPv4) with 32 bit address worth 4.3 billion hosts and now there is version 6, (IPv6).

He also said that registry when established should be tasked first and foremost to develop a National IPv6 Roadmap to strategize the IPv6 transition, nationwide.

Speaking on ‘IPv6 and Challenges in Nigeria’ at the recently held one-day forum organized by Digital Sense Africa (DSA) with the support of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) in Lagos, in preparation of the country for the global Internet Governance Forum 2010 scheduled to hold in Lithuania, in September this year, Mr. Rudman also said there is need to set up an IPv6 awareness and capacity building through seminars and trainings and incorporate IPv6 into the university curriculum.

The Federal Government through the regulator, NCC, should as matter of urgency provide some incentives to Internet industry to encourage them to adopt IPv6-based Infrastructure.

“These incentives can include reduction in regulatory fee and tax rebates,” he declared, noting that currently, Nigeria has about 300 lnternet Service Providers (ISPs), but only an estimated 20 per cent, which is 60 of the licensees are operational.

Noting there are only two ISPs in the country with IPv6, namely, 2001:4270:: 32 was allocated to Netcom Africa on June 15, 2006 and 2001:43b0: 32 was allocated to Cyberspace on March 10, 2009.

He also advised that upstream Internet connectivity providers should be asked to enable IPv6 readiness in their networks.

Mr. Rudman told participants at the forum presided over by the chairman, Internet Service Providers Associations of Nigeria (ISPAN), Chief Samuel Adeleke that the world cannot wait for Nigeria to migrate, therefore the nation needs every step forward to ensure any leap makes a milestone.

Pointing out that when the internet began it was in a university and they have no problems giving out IP addresses and over time, the initial IP addresses available was the IPv4 with about 4bn, which is now depleting.

Globally, he said, IPv4 remains 10 per cent, hence the introduction of version 6 became crucial, noting though that in Africa her quota is still remaining about 60 per cent at the African Network Information Center (AfriNIC) based in Kenya and 40 per cent has been distributed, while Tunisia has 2 per cent, Morocco 4 per cent, Algeria 5 per cent, Egypt 16 per cent, South Africa 59 per cent with others including Nigeria having 14 per cent.

“Most of the Internet security we have been talking about has to do with IP addresses. And because of billions of new users in China and India and new devices like mobile phones, Personal Data Assistant (PDA), cars, with IP addresses so that you can browse, IPv6 was introduced,” he said, citing an instance within an Indian refinery that runs on IP addresses using 51,000 devices and each one must have an IP addresses.

On the IPv6 challenges in Nigeria, Rudman said ISPs need business cases, but presently lack technical knowhow, core equipment compatibility issues, maintaining that lack of IPv6 upstream service providers and non request of IPv6 from end users have contributed to slow in adaptation of IPv6 in the country.

“All new IT equipment supplied to government should be IPv6 compliant and government to set target date for Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to have IPv6 compliant networks.

IPv6, he said, is scalability and has security, real time application, auto-configuration, mobility, addressing and routing, as well as extensibility, just as he assured that the transition and co-existence techniques showed that IPv6 has been designed for ease application with dual stack, which allows for simultaneous support for both IPv4 and IPv6 stacks, while the tunnels for IPv6 packet have been encapsulated in IPv4 models in addition to dual mechanism for translation.

According to him, based on the Darwinian imperative, it is either one modernizes, reorganize or die if not ready to adhere to IPv6.


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ICANN releases interim report on regional review

THE Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) ahead of the international meeting in Brussels, Belgium this month, has released the draft of the community-wide Geographic Regions Review Working Group (WGGR).

Policy analyst at ICANN, Mr. Robert Hoggarth said that the draft document could be found on the Socialtext Wiki page of the working group.

ITRealms Online recalls that the working group was formed by the ICANN board, to study and review the issues related to the definition of the ICANN geographic regions, by way of consulting with community stakeholders to develop and submit proposals to the board so as to resolve any problematic issues relating to the current definition of its geographic regions.

According to him, the first phase of the work tagged “Initial Report” in July of 2009 identified various applications and functions to which “ICANN Geographic Regions” are currently applied by existing ICANN structures via its geographic diversity among volunteer leaders.

He also said that it briefly documented other regional structures used within ICANN but not defined in the Bylaws and documented a number of potential “matters” that working group members from the ALAC, ASO, ccNSO, GAC and GNSO; thought should be covered during the Working Group’s subsequent investigations.

On the second phase, he said that WGGR effort has been to produce an Interim Report that builds on the foundation of the Initial Report and begins to focus on General Principles, Specific Considerations and some of the critical issues (“Matters”) that it will address in its Final Report document. In its present form, the draft document addresses two particular areas: (1) a review of the underlying objectives and general principles of geographic regions; and (2) identification of specific matters to be addressed in the Final Report.

He pointed out that members of WGGR were determined that additional community input would substantially enhance preparation the Interim Report.

So, draft Version 5 of the Interim Report, he said, is still a work-in-progress and is being formally provided to the community solely for discussion purposes and in order that WGGR members would have the option to discuss its contents with their respective communities - as well as the general ICANN community - during the Brussels meeting next month. Previous drafts of the Interim Report have been made regularly available on the Working Documents page of the WGGR wiki site.

“That wiki page is set up to accept community comments and such comments about the Interim Report and the WGGR’s work in general are welcomed and will be shared with and viewed by WGGR members. Of course, a full Public Comment Forum will be opened for community comments on the Interim Report document when it is published,” he explained.


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