Caribbean, Latin American Tech Experts Gather In Cuba, As LACNIC 25 Opens In Havana

HAVANA—Cuba is the capital of the regional tech world this week.

Some 700 technology experts and professionals from across the region gathered in western Havana on May 2 for the annual meeting of the Internet Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean (LACNIC).

LACNIC is one of five organisations worldwide responsible for managing the world’s Internet numbering resources.

This week’s meeting, called LACNIC 25, is one of the most important gatherings of the regional Internet community. Sessions will cover a broad range of topics, including cybersecurity, IPv6 deployment, regional interconnection, and several technical training workshops.

But the significance of the event transcends the agenda. The meeting is regarded as one of several signs of ongoing change that goes beyond Cuba’s nascent telecommunications sector. The Geneva-based International Telecommunications Union (ITU) ranks Cuba lowest in the Americas in telecommunications development. But Cuban officials have cited factors such as the U.S. economic embargo and political aggression as reasons for its stunted development.

Until 2012, most Internet users on the Caribbean’s largest island had only had limited Internet connectivity via satellite. In early 2013, the Cuban government opened several cybercafes, which have become the primary point of access to the Internet for local users. The Cuban public mostly has State-controlled Internet access in schools and workplaces.

LACNIC 25 is being hosted jointly with the Cuban telecommunications company, ETECSA.

“It’s great to be hosting everyone right here in Havana!” said Jorge Villa, manager of the national university network at the Cuban Ministry of Higher Education, on the opening day of the weeklong meeting at the Havana Convention Centre.

Villa was on hand at LACNIC 23 in Lima, Peru, when LACNIC executive director Oscar Robles made the official announcement of the venue for LACNIC 25. The news was greeted with loud applause.

It is the second time that LACNIC flies in to Havana for its meetings. In 2003, the city hosted LACNIC 5.

Curacao To Host Second Caribbean Internet Peering Forum

Curacao will host the Caribbean’s second regional Internet Peering Forum from June 8 to 9, 2016.

Called CarPIF2, the upcoming meeting will bring together Internet service providers, Internet exchange points, telecommunications regulators and infrastructure providers for two days of in-depth talks on regional ICT development-related issues.

Several major Internet and telecommunications industry players from the private sector, civil society, academia, regional governments and the international technical community are expected to converge in the southern Caribbean for the high-profile event.

The event dates were announced at the 10th regional gathering of the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG) in Belize. CarPIF co-organisers Bevil Wooding and Shernon Osepa described the upcoming event as an important milestone in the develop of the Internet in the region.

“CARPIF is about promoting regional and global Internet development and growing the Caribbean Internet economy, and that is something that we should all be very interested in pursuing,” Osepa said, speaking to a wide cross-section of Caribbean technology professionals in the audience.

Osepa, who is the manager of Regional Affairs for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Internet Society, said that he thought that the second iteration of CarPIF would be “even bigger” than the first , which was held in Barbados in May.

“We have already heard from some providers that were not present in Barbados, that they will be present in Curacao.”

Bevil Wooding, an Internet Strategist with Packet Clearing House and one of the drivers behind CarPIF, described the forum as “a significant step towards the development of the Caribbean Internet economy.”

CarPIF2 will be hosted by AMS-IX, a Netherlands-based Internet exchange with a regional deployment in Curacao. It is an initiative of Packet Clearing House and the Internet Society, with the support of Caribbean Telecommunications Union and CaribNOG.

Bevil Wooding, an Internet Strategist with Packet Clearing House and one of the founders of CaribNOG, described CarPIF2 as “a significant step towards the development of the Caribbean Internet economy.”

Martin Hannigan, Director of Networks and Data Center Architecture at Akamai Technologies, said he was expecting more North American networks to take part in CarPIF2. Akamai is a leading content delivery network services provider.

“Today, I communicated with some of my colleagues and there was high interest, and an offer of sponsorship. I would not be surprised if you saw Microsoft, and potentially Amazon, and some representation either through presence or sponsorship from Netflix,” Hannigan said.

These kinds of forums will allow practitioners to meet and build relationships with other stakeholders from across the regional industry, Hannigan said.

Another CaribNOG participant, Claire Craig, Enterprise Applications Support Manager at The University of the West Indies (UWI), St Augustine, said she was also looking forward to the meeting, but for a different reason.

“I think peering is an important concept that we in the Caribbean need to understand,” said Craig, a PhD student at the UWI Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies.

“My doctoral research focuses on Internet exchange points, which are also known as IXPs. And IXPs are one of the places where content providers can interconnect. So I expect that CarPIF will help me to understand the Caribbean peering landscape even better.”

Industry Experts “Optimistic” About Caribbean Technology Development

BELIZE CITY, Belize—Regional Internet and technology experts remain upbeat on the future of the industry in the Caribbean.

A recent industry report showed that Internet connectivity in the Caribbean is growing at sluggish speeds, with high rates. However, shifting attitudes within the region’s technical community are triggering positive change in its technology landscape.

Among the challenges faced by the region in developing its technology sector are outdated legislation, limited access to capital, and an environment not always conducive to the development of indigenous technology businesses and services.

But some experts say that the region is well positioned to seize fresh opportunities to improve its Internet access penetration, to reduce Internet service costs and to increase network service quality.

“A highly creative, well-educated work force, stable democracies, sub-sea bandwidth capacity and relatively high device penetration rates set the stage for region-wide, Internet-enabled innovation,” said Bevil Wooding, an Internet Strategist at Packet Clearing House, which supports the global development of critical Internet infrastructure.

Wooding was among several high-profile presenters from the Caribbean, Latin and North America to take part in CaribNOG 10, the tenth gathering of the Caribbean Network Operators Group, which took place in Belize City from November 2 to 6.

CaribNOG is an independent, volunteer-based technical community that promotes development of the region’s computer network engineers and technology practitioners. Its semi-annual gatherings have become an influential forum for the development of regional cybersecurity strategies and in the support of critical internet infrastrcuture in the region.

“One main focus of CaribNOG is strengthening of the technical community—the individuals responsible for designing, implementing, maintaining and securing the computer networks that are now so vital to life in the digital age,” said Wooding, a founding member of CaribNOG.

“We are building the human network necessary to support the region’s computer networks,” he said.

He pointed to the recent, unprecedented agreement among competing ISPs to establish a local Internet exchange point in Belize, as a tangible example of the potential that is unleashed when industry actors—including competitors—work together for the greater good.

“CaribNOG is empowering new levels of collaboration and knowledge-exchange in the Caribbean,” he said.

CaribNOG 10 attracted more than 75 local, regional and international industry practitioners and experts from academia, government, the private sector, civil society and the global technical community.

“It’s nice to get everyone together, all the different IT people and all the different stakeholders, together in one room to look at global concepts and regional issues. The more we get together, the more we have a unified voice,” said Robert Buckland, chief information officer at Tropic Air, the largest airline in Belize.

“The work that we’re doing here at CaribNOG is very important for the Internet ecosystem,” said Albert Daniels, a Senior Manager for Global Stakeholder Engagement at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

“No one entity can singlehandedly solve our problems, or deal with our development. This is the value of meetings like CaribNOG, where all of the partners in the Internet ecosystem can share perspectives on relevant issues, and then return to their respective sectors with an elevated sight of how to addess those issues.”