Why data infrastructure upgrades are the next step in Caribbean evolution

Many Caribbean livelihoods are made and lost around seasonal fluctuations in foreigners’ travel. For much of the region, tourism, an all-too-inefficient form of intraregional human traffic, is economic lifeblood. But for one group of Caribbean islands, a different kind of traffic is generating a new model for intraregional economic partnership.

 Internet traffic—data packets that move across telecommunications networks—is opening new economic possibilities to countries with a historical dependence on tourism. The governments of Grenada, St Lucia and St Vincent and the Grenadines are now working together to update their on-island Internet infrastructure, as part of a wider project to upgrade the data networks across the region.

The Caribbean Telecommunications Union has been tasked with stewardship of the project, called CARCIP, the Caribbean Regional Communications Infrastructure Program. Funded by a US$25 million-dollar allocation from the World Bank, the project has had some success in reducing the gaps in regional broadband connectivity, in order to fostering technology-based innovation.

“We have reached a considerable way towards identifying the countries’ infrastructure gaps and providing technical recommendations to address them,” said Junior Mc Intyre, head of the CTU project team.

“And we have already started the development of business incubators, skills development and certification programmes.”

Mc Intyre was addressing an audience of 100-plus regional technology experts participating in the eighth regional gathering of the Caribbean Network Operators Group, known as CaribNOG. The weeklong conference dedicated an entire day, aptly called CARCIP Day, to technical talks on strengthening and improving regional Internet infrastructure.

Christopher Roberts, CARCIP country coordinator in St Lucia, delivered the day’s opening presentation, explaining the benefits of one of the main infrastructure upgrades being implemented across the region—the Internet exchange point, known more commonly as an IXP.

The primary role of an IXP is to keep local Internet traffic local and to reduce costs associated with traffic exchanged between ISPs, Roberts said. He explained that an IXP is a facility where networks interconnect, facilitating the exchange of Internet traffic between Internet service providers.

St Lucia is the latest of eight countries to establish an IXP in the region. CARCIP coordinators Roxanne John (Saint Vincent and the Grenadines) and Alice Bain (Grenada) confirmed that their countries were also actively working on fully realising the benefits of IXP deployment at the national level.

 Bevil Wooding, Internet Strategist with Packet Clearing House, said, “Globally, IXPs have been shown to improve quality of service to Internet subscribers by improving bandwidth, keeping local content local, reducing the operational cost for local data, building local economy by generating local content, encouraging entrepreneurship activity, and supporting other services such as e-government, e-learning, tax filing, multi-purpose identification cards, procurement.”

Simon Alexander, information technology manager of the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), said, “The CARCIP Day forum has allowed us to have targeted discussions focusing on both the strengths and the weaknesses of sub-regional infrastructure development. The interactions are already having significant impact which could only redound to the region’s benefit.”

In a post-session interview, Claire Craig, doctoral researcher at The University of the West Indies, said, “Issues of access and connectivity are already dominating the Caribbean conversation about development. There will be a growing demand for access and connectivity caused by the increase in the percentage of Caribbean people using the Internet. This trend is already well documented in ITU Statistics 2014. The implementation of IXPs will address this problem and drive regional development.”

CaribNOG 8 is co-sponsored by “LACNIC in the Caribbean 6”, an outreach initiative of the South America-based region Internet registry. Over five days, conference sessions aim to cover a range of technology topics including cyber security, cloud computing and mobile broadband.

More information on CaribNOG 8-LACNIC Caribbean 6 is available at caribnog.org and lacnic.net/web/eventos/caribbean6.

From T&T Guardian

Securing Caribbean networks

Cybersecurity was top of the agenda as over 80 technology professionals from 15 countries gathered in Curacao for the second day of a major regional technology conference. The meeting is the eighth regional gathering of the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG).

Because technology plays such an important role in the region’s development, cybersecurity is a major concern, said Shernon Osepa, the Curacao-born manager of regional affairs for the Internet Society (ISOC) Latin America and the Caribbean.

“A lot of commercial banks in the region are being attacked, but they simply don’t report when these attacks are done. So we know that they are happening but we don’t know to what extent,” Osepa said.

“These attacks are being masterminded by people who are highly educated, technically competent and very knowledgeable about Caribbean security vulnerabilities. This is their full-time job. And it is a global industry.”

Osepa, alongside Albert Daniels, manager of stakeholder engagement for the Caribbean at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), delivered the day’s first presentations, which focused on the need to secure critical Caribbean Internet infrastructure.

“2013 was the year of the mega-breach,” Daniels said, explaining that the number of security breaches reported internationally hit a high last year, a trend that has continued in 2014.

Daniels said the region’s businesses, governments and citizens needed to better understand the real-world repercussions of unsafe practices in the digital realm.

One important aspect of education, he said, was to develop the practice of reporting confirmed or suspected cases of computer hacking, identity theft and other kinds of Internet-based criminal activity.

“If you live in the Caribbean, don’t think that the hackers are not trying to use our systems to perpetuate their crime. Even in the countries where there are few reports, that simply means that attacks are going unreported.”

Without reporting, decision-makers are unable to make informed decisions to properly address cybersecurity issues, said Elgeline Martis, head of the Caribbean Cyber Emergency Response Team.

“We in the Caribbean are not collecting data, so we cannot support our decision makers in taking the right cyber security measures. We need to start collecting our own data,” she said.

“For example, if we collect data and we see that spam is a big issue, then we are able to tell decision-makers they should invest in solving problems with spam. You always need updated facts and figures to support informed decision-making.”

Experts join heads on Caribbean cybersecurity

The best way to improve the security of a computer network is to break into it. That's the advice from cybersecurity expert Fernando Gont of SI6 Networks said, to the regional gathering at the eighth Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) in Curacao.

At the meeting, Mark Kosters, chief technical officer with the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) and Carlos Martínez, chief technology officer at LACNIC, took a practical and in-depth look at the nuts and bolts of Internet security.

Martinez said he was “very, very disappointed” with the security industry because their operations were being motivated by the wrong incentives. He compared digital security to national security.

“It works the same way as a private prison. Their best interest is to keep things in a bad state. Their best business comes about by having a bad security situation. What is the financial incentive for them to improve the overall security situation? The best interest of the private prison is to have many prisoners but is that in the best interest of society? No, but the financial incentives of the security industry are wrong.”

Apart from cyber security, the meeting covers a range of technology topics including cloud computing, critical Internet infrastructure and mobile broadband.

For the group the social networking is as important as the computer networking. Between and after highly technical sessions, participants linger in pockets of conversation.

"The CaribNOG meeting is an interesting gathering where competitors in daily business become colleagues with the common interest in defending Caribbean networks,” said Bevil Wooding, one of the CaribNOG founders and an organiser of the weeklong event.

Interactions over meals and side meetings during breaks are a regular and important feature of the conference, which attracts technology professionals representing diverse interests from around the region and across the world.

The event is being held at the Hilton Curacao, Willemstad from September 29 to October 3.

More information is available on the official event websites: lacnic.net/web/eventos/caribbean6 and caribnog.org.