Updates on Oceania Activities

Status of ICANN-Oceania Engagement (as at June 2015)

When we started the working group a year ago, we looked at the activities that we could support under the 4 objectives:

1)   DNS Security and Stability

2)   The Domain Name Industry

3)   Expansion of the Internet

4)   Internet Governance

With the available resource (sourced internally) we are able to report the following:

Increased root server instances in the region:

9 countries have local root server instances:

Australia, NZ, Fiji, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Guam

 ICANN staff will continue to reach out to network operators and have also highlighted this available offer at PITA and regulators meetings. ICANN staff is in discussion with various network operators regarding hosting possibilities. APNIC has an MoU with ICANN to also promote L-root server deployments in the AP region.

DNSSEC deployment:

11 ccTLDs in the region have implemented DNSSEC:

AU, CX, KI, NC, NR, NU, NZ, SB, VU, TO, TV

 ICANN staff have continued to carry this message to PITA, ccTLDs and regulators meeting in the region for ccTLDs in the region consider implementing DNSSEC.

VU ccTLD registry was supported by ICANN to deploy DNSSEC.

DNSSEC training has been offered in PacNOG.

CERT

The operational effectiveness of PacCERT has been discussed in the ICT Officials meeting in Tonga in June 2015. We will collaborate with the organization (under University of the South Pacific).

ICANN Security staff have offered and run 1 day DNS Abuse and Mitigation training for local Law enforcement officers in Tonga, Kiribati and Fiji (April and May 2015). We will continue to arrange other training in the region targeting LEAs and members of the local judiciary.

IPv6 Implementation Plan

This activity was discussed with APNIC whose activity in the region has been evident by their promotion and holding IPv6 country roadshows. All Pacific Islands countries do have an IPv6 allocation but a big number of network operators have yet to deploy these. PacNOG trainings are also providing support to ensure those engineers trained are capable of deploying IPv6 once the organization decides on IPv6 implementation. Shared messages of need for regions service providers to deploy IPv6 are raised continuously at industry events like PITA, PacNOGs and at Pacific ICT Officials and Regulators meetings.

Internet Governance

In the region both AU and NZ run very successful local/national IG forums and the plan was to see how similar forums can be supported in the Pacific working with partners. Unfortunately I was not able to get enough traction to plan/run an IG type forum for the Pacific in FY15 mainly due to conflicting events in the region and lacking resource to plan. However my participation in the various fora in the Pacific enabled me to highlight the importance in having IG related forums for the Pacific and to get support from the governments/industry and all stakeholders. I can report that last week in Tonga with the re-birth of PiRRC they have on their work plan to promote IG in the region and this I believe is a great opportunity for us to work together. So with willing partners like APNIC (active in APrIGF) and others we should be able to coordinate with PiRRC (Govt), PITA (Industry) and PICISOC (Civil Society) to plan a future IG forum for the Pacific. For now Pacific Islanders can attend APrIGF, NetHui and also the global IGF.