Says ICANN’s regional liaison officer for the Australasia/Pacific Island region, Savenaca Vocea,

Dionisia Tabureguci
Stakeholders in the region’s telecommunications industry have been urged to become more involved in issues that are related to the progress of the development of Internet and a way of doing this would be to keep a tab on work done internationally by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

Vocea

ICANN is an internationally organised, non-profit corporation that has the responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top Level Domain name system management and root server system management functions.

ICANN’s regional liaison officer for the Australasia/Pacific Island region, Savenaca Vocea, said there is a lot happening in the Internet space which makes ICANN, as a global coordinating body of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers, well placed to provide current and useful information that should be shared with the Internet community.

“As ICANN’s liaison officer in the region, I play a facilitating role in engaging with various stakeholder communities like ccTLD registry bodies, governments, industry players, NGOs and end-user community organisations to promote how best ICANN’s mission and mandates can be of service to the region in terms of preserving a single interoperable and stable Internet system,” Vocea said.

“ICANN has been making presentations at, and attended, various industry stakeholder events of PITA (Pacific Islands Telecommunications Association), PacINET (Pacific Internet-annual meeting of Internet Society’s Pacific Islands Chapter) and Pacific Network Operator Group (PacNOG) and other stakeholder groups are sent information.

But I’d say the knowledge of ICANN is known amongst stakeholder groups in the region.

“One thing that has taken some time to understand is the ICANN process of decision-making and how one can participate in the various advisory committees and supporting organisation that advises ICANN. My role is also to address this and to and encourage more participation from the region to get their voices heard,” said Vocea, who took on the job late last year.

He said active participation was important as some discussions and decisions made by ICANN do impact the way people can run their businesses.

An example, he cited, was the IPV6 address space issue, which would see more IP addresses available internationally and what can be made available by the IPV4 system which is currently being used.

At some point, he said, the development of IPV6 would mean that ISPs and network operators everywhere, including the Pacific region, would have to upgrade their systems in order to facilitate the change as required by the market.

Another hot issue and also at the top of ICANN’s discussion list is the issue of Internationalised Domain Names (IDN), where domain names can be represented by local language characters from non-ASCII scripts, for example Arabic or Chinese.

It may not be so hot in the Pacific but would at some point be important factors that would have some implications for operators in the region.

The ICANN processes are also accessible to governments through the Government Advisory Committee (GAC). “GAC’s key role is to provide advice to ICANN on issues of public policy.

In particular, the GAC considers ICANN’s activities and policies as they relate to the concerns of governments, particularly in matters where there may be interaction between ICANN policies and national laws or international agreements.

“This in itself is a useful benefit for government regulatory departments to participate and contribute to ICANN matters.

Membership of GAC is open to all national governments, distinct economies as recognised in international fora, and multinational government organisations and treaty organisations,” said Vocea.

Considering that the Internet was also fast evolving and that related issues would touch upon daily lives of Internet users, individuals and organisations can also participate in ICANN’s activities by becoming a part of its extensive network via membership of one of its ‘At-Large’ organisations.

“’At-Large’ is ICANN’s name for individual Internet users who want to be involved in issues that affect individual’s use of the Internet’s domain name system. ICANN At-Large consists of an international At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) and user groups throughout the world working together to form five Regional At-Large Organisations (one in each geographic region) that inform the world’s Internet end-users in issues that affect the future of the Internet,” Vocea said.

At-Large organisations, he added, are also instrumental in ICANN discussions concerning issues that affect ICT development in general.

Vocea said his role as liaison officer for ICANN in the region provides an opportunity for stakeholders in the Pacific to have a closer link to the activities of ICANN and in this way, they may be able to play a more active role in the development of the Internet where it concerns their interests.

“The Pacific has historically had limited representation in ICANN circles, so this role will also ensure that Internet stakeholders and the community at large have a chance to receive and be able to comment on policy discussions that may impact the region before any final decisions are made,” Vocea said.