Experts zeroing on internet infrastructure

The Caribbean Network Operator Group (CaribNOG), the largest, non-commercial, technical, educational and communityoriented event in the Caribbean, will be staging its annual Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum on Wednesday, July 7, 2021.

This year, the 7th staging of CARPIF will focus on securing critical internet infrastructure in the region. The event will feature sessions that tackle key operational and security issues faced by network professionals such as routing security and Internet Exchange Point administration.

Talks will cover the experience of Internet exchange points in the pandemic, and updates from Caribbean exchange point operators and Internet organisations, as well as training on routing security best practices, guidelines for securing critical Internet infrastructure.

CarPIF is an open event that brings together key Internet industry players, including Internet service providers, mobile operators, content providers, cloud and infrastructure service providers, as well as government regulators, academics and business leaders. Participants representing the Caribbean, Latin and North America will gather with counterparts from Africa, Europe, Oceania and the Far East. This diverse group will be discussing industry threats and trends and sharing knowledge and expertise, with the objective of improving and facilitating greater regional cooperation on Internet infrastructure and connectivity issues.

Bevil Wooding, the Director of Caribbean Affairs at the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) and a co-founder of CarPIF explained: “This year, the work of CarPIF is more important than ever. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted [in a] surge in demand for local digital services across the region and around the world.

This has put greater pressure on network operators to deliver more reliable and more secure Internet services to their customers. As a consequence, there is a greater urgency across the region to ensure that the critical infrastructure needed to support enhanced Internet service delivery, security and reliability are in place.”

Wooding has been a vocal advocate for the proliferation of Internet exchange points, or IXPs in the region for years. He and the CarPIF team readily admit that there is still much more work that needs to be done to improve Internet connectivity in the Caribbean. Shernon Osepa, Director of Caribbean Affairs &

Development for the Internet Society (ISOC) and co-founder of CarPIF, said: “Many operators still send regional traffic to be exchanged out of the region. This is why the CaribNOG team decided formally to establish a Caribbean forum dedicated to the issues of peering, interconnection and IXP development.”

CarPIF enjoys the support of several major regional and international organizations including the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC), the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), Google, Facebook and the Belize Public Utilities Commission (PUC) among others.

Kevon Swift, Head of Strategic Relations and Integration at LACNIC, remarked: “The representatives from four major Internet organisations, ARIN, LACNIC, ICANN and ISOC are all here, working together with regional and global Internet stakeholders to build a stronger, more resilient Caribbean Internet” Together these experts have set for themselves the goal of improving Caribbean connections, both of its networks and its people.

Feature speakers at CarPIF 7 include Bijal Sanghani, a director on the board of PeeringDB and a RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre) Services Working Group co-chair; and Abdul-Hakeem Ajijola, a commissioner for the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and chair of the Working Group on Cyber Incident Management and Critical Information Protection of Global Forum on Cyber Expertise (GFCE).

The group will also hear from leading regional experts including Bevil Wooding, Shernon Osepa, Kevon Swift, and Albert Daniels, Caribbean Stakeholder Engagement Senior Manager for ICANN. Participation in CarPIF 7 is free of charge. Interested persons can get more information and register online at the official website: www.carpif.net. (PR)