The Caribbean region and the global Internet: David and Goliath 2.0

Caribbean societies remain severely underrepresented at international meetings where decisions are being made concerning the development and governance of the global Internet. And for a region already burdened with a number of complex, deep-rooted and interrelated issues, the consequences of that chronic under-representation could be dire.

“The Internet presents wonderful opportunities for social and economic development,” said Albert Daniels, Caribbean-area manager for the Stakeholder Engagement Team of the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

“But if global Internet Governance policies continue to be developed without the input of the Caribbean, then we will not recognise those wonderful opportunities or know how we can exploit them.”

Since 2013, the Saint Lucia-born Daniels, who is attached to the ICANN Engagement Centre in Montevideo, Uruguay, has been working to improve the level and quality of regional representation.

Missing the boat

“If the Caribbean does not participate in the global dialogue where important decisions are made about changes in the shape and direction of Internet policy and standards, then the region will tend to remain unaware of those changes, and that is true whether or not those changes are working towards our benefit.”

The irony, Daniels said, is that the Caribbean, because of its unique geo-political configuration, has great capacity to affect global policy-making. He gave the example of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), which advises the ICANN Board on issues of public policy.

“Membership in the GAC comes through accreditation, and there is a seat available for every Caribbean nation,” Daniels said.

He explained that the Caribbean region, being composed of several sovereign states with small populations and in close proximity, has an almost oversized potential to weigh in on ICANN's global decision-making processes.

“As a whole, the region represents a substantial portion of the votes available at the GAC,” Daniels said.

“At the time that I joined in 2013, there were only four countries from the region represented--Jamaica, Trinidad, Montserrat, Cayman Islands. Since then, I've been able to assist Grenada, Dominica and the Caribbean Telecommunications Union with their GAC membership process, and they are now full members. The CTU has also become a member with observer status, as a regional treaty organisation.

"If half of the Caribbean countries would participate in the global dialogue, the region would be a force to be reckoned with. But policies are being developed without our input and as a result, they may or may not be working towards our interest.”

Casting a wider Internet

He offered ICANN’s new gTLDs programme as a specific example of how the region could be missing out. The gTLDs are the letters immediately following the final dot in an Internet address. Through the program, the number of gTLDS could expand from 22 to thousands.

“New gTLDs give corporations and regular Internet users the chance to operate under a name of their choosing, which helps enhance competition, innovation and choice. The new domains represent an opportunity for local communities, charities and small businesses to stand out from the crowd,” Daniels said.

“We could consider .Caribbean or .hotel or .rum, any name that a business person feels can create a commercial opportunity, not just at the national level but in the global marketplace.

"But what happens in the case where you have a commercial entity expressing an interest in a domain name that can also represent a geographic region like the Caribbean? Well, then the commercial entity could possibly get the domain name, simply because our region is sorely underrepresented and doesn't in the decision-making process.”

Representing the Caribbean: ICANN Roadshow comes to Trinidad and Tobago

PORT OF SPAIN. Local and regional technology experts will gather in Port of Spain, Trinidad later this month to share their knowledge with participants in a roadshow organised by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

The roadshow will be the first such ICANN event in the Caribbean and it is expected to attract a wide cross-section of participants ranging from academia and technical communities, to corporations, government representatives, civil society and end users.

“We are extremely proud to break new ground in bringing the LAC-i-Roadshow to Trinidad and Tobago,” said Albert Daniels, Caribbean-area manager for ICANN’s Global Stakeholder Engagement team.

The event, which takes place at the Hilton Hotel, St Ann’s, will start at 8.30 am on April 25.

The LAC-i-Roadshow is designed to raise awareness across the region on key topics related to the transition to IPv6, the impact of the new generic top level domain (gTLD) program, and the security and stability of critical Internet infrastructure.

Besides Daniels, other ICANN representatives expected to present are Tracey Hackshaw, Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) vice chair, and Dev Anand Teelucksingh, At Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) member.

Speakers are also drawn from regional registries and local organisations which work together to maintain the global interoperability of the Internet. Presentations will be made by representatives of The Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), the Regional Internet Registry for the Latin American and Caribbean regions (LACNIC), the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), and the Trinidad and Tobago Network Information Centre (TTNIC).

“There will be four editions of the LAC-i-Roadshow per year in the Caribbean, the Andean region, Central America and South America,” said Daniels.

Suriname hosts CTU regional technology development meetings

Caribbean leaders will meet in Suriname this week to push forward the region’s technology development agenda. The South American country will host an executive meeting of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) on April 8th and 9th at the Hotel Krasnapolsky, Paramaribo.

The CTU’s executive council is made up of permanent secretaries from ministries with responsibility for telecommunications in the CTU member states. The council has oversight responsibility for the work of the CTU secretariat.

At the meeting, Bernadette Lewis, secretary general of the CTU, will present to the executive council chairman her report on the performance of the organisation and the progress of its recent and ongoing projects.

Cleveland Thomas, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) area representative for the Caribbean, and Albert Daniels, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) global stakeholder engagement manager for the Caribbean, are also expected to make presentations at the high-level meeting.

The CTU was established by the heads of government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in 1989 in Nassau, The Bahamas. The latest executive council comes on the heels of the 25th intersessional meeting of the conference of CARICOM heads of government, a top-level meeting which underscored the significant role of regional leadership in designing and implementing the Caribbean’s technology development agenda.

One highlight of the executive council meeting will be a video presentation by leadership development expert, Dr. Farid Youssef of the Faculty of Medical Sciences, The University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago. Dr Youssef will identify drivers for effective leadership in the Caribbean context.

Managing Caribbean Spectrum

The two-day event is sandwiched in a weeklong series of regional technology development meetings hosted by the government of Suriname, through its Ministry of Transport, Communications and Tourism, under the leadership of Minister Falisie Josef Pinas.

On April 7, Pinas delivered welcome remarks at the inaugural meeting of the Spectrum Management Steering Committee (SMSC), a multi-country team of senior government policy makers and industry regulators.

The inaugural SMSC meeting comes as the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) is rolling out its Harmonised Caribbean Spectrum Planning and Management project across its fourteen member countries. The project, which was formally launched in Montego Bay, Jamaica in December 2013, is being undertaken with technical support from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and Compete Caribbean. It aims to harmonise practices and procedures for spectrum management across the countries.

The Spectrum Management Task Force (SMTF), a multi-country, multi-stakeholder technical committee of government, regulatory, private sector, academic and civil society personnel, held its first workshop in February. Conducted in collaboration with the ITU and the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency, the inaugural SMTF workshop focused on emergency telecommunications.

On April 7, the SMSC started building on the work of the SMTF. The SMSC is aiming to develop a regional frequency allocation table, which is intended to facilitate the adoption of common frequencies for disaster management and emergency telecommunications.

On the last two conference days, April 10th and 11th, the CTU will conduct a pair of workshops designed to highlight adaptive technologies available to deaf and blind people. Presentations will focus on ways in which people with visual and auditory impairments can use the Internet to make the most of opportunities for education, training and employment. Some sessions will highlight specific devices that can help people overcome the loss of sight and hearing, using popular platforms such as Apple’s iOs and Google’s Android.