The AFRINIC-27, hosted by the Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NIRA), Nigeria, commenced on Monday; with Internet Service Providers, enterprise solution providers among other industry stakeholders converged to share progress, successes and future plans for the growth of Internet Registry for AFRICA.
According to Alan Barret, Nigeria has been significant to the growth of Regional Internet Registry for Africa stating that by extention AFRINIC have allocated more than 100 million IPv4 addresses and over 9000 IPv6 /32 prefixes in Africa with around 42% of over 1500 members receiving an IPv6 prefix.
“This year at end of October, we have allocated 7.2 millionIPv4 addresses, 95 /32 IPv6 prefixes, and 127 ASNs with 122 new members joining us.
“Besides our main role, that is, to distribute Internet Number Resources in Africa, we contribute to ensuring that our processes remain transparent and secure at all times.
“We have in place tools with which we are able to communicate our number resources distribution activities as well as ensuring that this distribution is secure.
Barret also referred to the ‘WHOIS database, RPKI and DNSSEC’ as tools and technologies that the community has used to keep the cyber space secure and transparent.
“We keep monitoring this to ensure we are up to date with the latest technological developments and in line with policies as proposed and ratified”.
He added that AFRINIC has continued to also support IP infrastructure development and reinforcement throughout the African region.
“This has seen increase in Internet access, speeds as well as infrastructure stability. Our relationship with the increasing numbers of Internet Exchange Points keeps growing stronger. This will help us achieve our goal of keeping Internet traffic local. Through our training this year, so far, we have trained over 545engineers from 18 countries on effectively deploying IPv6 and managing Internet number resources.
“Our FIRE Grant and Award Program is part of our capacity building initiative since 2007. The program provides funds for projects that empower communities in Africa through the use of the Internet and innovative ICT solutions. We recently announced the winning projects for the 2017 Awards Program. We are currently supporting a total of 18 projects worth over $300 000”.
In the coming days, hundreds of participants from all over the world will join AFRINIC for technical presentations, panel sessions on Internet related issues as well as the Public Policy Forum to discuss policy proposals that, if accepted by the community, will guide how AFRINIC manages and distributes Internet number resources in Africa.
Representatives of the Ministry of Communications (Nigeria); the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), industry players, were joined by their counterparts from over 60 countries at the meeting.
