[Ndr] Fwd: [civic] After Hurricanes, Internet Groups Form New Commission To Improve Caribbean Network Resilience

[Jason Hynds]

FYI
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Subject: [civic] After Hurricanes, Internet Groups Form New Commission To
Improve Caribbean Network Resilience
Date: Mon, 04 Dec 2017 14:23:43 GMT
From: Yacine Khelladi <yacine at yacine.net> <yacine at yacine.net>
Reply-To: Caribbean ICT stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC)
<civic at dgroups.org> <civic at dgroups.org>
To: Caribbean ICT stakeholders Virtual Community (CIVIC) <civic at dgroups.org>
<civic at dgroups.org>

After Hurricanes, Internet Groups Form New Commission To Improve Caribbean
Network Resiliencehttp://curacaochronicle.com/tech/after-hurricanes-internet-groups-form-new-commission-to-improve-caribbean-network-resilience/

Cisco, IBM, Intel support new body to strengthen regional telecom
infrastructure.

Caribbean Telecommunications Union Secretary General Bernadette Lewis PARADISE
ISLAND - Still reeling from the utter devastation wrought by a record-breaking
2017 hurricane season, many Caribbean island states are struggling to return to
normalcy. By some estimates, relief and recovery efforts after Hurricanes Irma
and Maria alone could cost upwards of US$150 billion.

The failure of Caribbean communications networks is particularly worrying.
Mobile and Internet technology affect not only the personal communications
between millions of citizens but, more critically, are vital to the
coordination
of  emergency responders' post-hurricane recovery efforts.  Increasingly severe
weather events are highlighting an urgent need to strengthen the region's
communications infrastructure.

In response, a special Commission for Caribbean Communications Resilience is
being formally empaneled to critically examine the region's communications
vulnerabilities and come up with recommendations for more resilient
infrastructure, technologies and methods.

The formation of the Commission was announced this week by the Caribbean
Telecommunications Union (CTU), an inter-governmental entity formed by the
Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to drive the growth of the region's
communications
sector.

"There were many deficiencies exposed in the Caribbean's response to recent
hurricanes and disasters in the region," said Bernadette Lewis, Secretary
General of the CTU. "This special Commission will gather facts about the
failures, in order to better understand which ones contributed most
significantly to the overall outage. We will develop a set of practical
recommendations as to how things can be done better in the future."

On November 29, one day before the official end of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane
season, Lewis made the announcement during the CTU's sixteenth Caribbean
Ministerial Strategic ICT Seminar, held at the Atlantic Paradise Island Resort
in The Bahamas.

The Commission will produce a report with specific recommendations to Caribbean
governments, regulators and communications ministries. The recommendations will
be presented to Caribbean governments at a meeting convened for that purpose by
regional inter-governmental treaty organisations the CTU and the
Organisation of
Eastern Caribbean States.

Lewis will chair the new body, and Kim Mallalieu, head of the Computer Science
department of the University of the West Indies, will be vice-chair. It will
initially be made up of ten commissioners drawn from regional and international
experts on communications technology and regulation.

"The Commission will be neutral, in that none of the commissioners will be from
the companies whose infrastructure failed, nor companies seeking to
compete with
them, nor regulators with jurisdiction over them," Lewis said.

Among others, global technology companies Cisco, IBM, Intel and Uniregistry and
international treaty organisations the World Bank and Organisation of American
States are supporting the project and overseeing the Commission's work.

Several regional organisations are also supporters, including the national
telecommunications regulators of St Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, as
well as the Caribbean Network Operators Group.

Among the Internet bodies supporting the initiative is Packet Clearing House
(PCH), the international organisation responsible for providing operational
support and security to critical Internet infrastructure, including Internet
exchange points and the core of the domain name system.

"Packet Clearing House is honoured to be participating in this effort," said
Bill Woodcock, who is the executive director of PCH, and one of the ten
commissioners. "The scale of the devastation wrought by this season's
hurricanes
is unmatched in recent communications history. Having two entire countries go
offline through the critical period of evacuation and humanitarian relief is a
failure that cannot be allowed to happen again, and the challenge that climate
change presents in the Caribbean will continue to increase in future years."

Another institutional supporter of the newly formed body is the American
Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN), which is one of five registries worldwide
coordinating Internet number resources. ARIN's region covers much of the
Caribbean, as well as Canada and the United States.  Among the islands hardest
hit by the 2017 hurricane season are Anguilla, Barbuda, Dominica, Turks and
Caicos, and the British Virgin Islands, all of which are served by ARIN.

"We offer our sympathy and condolences to all who suffered loss. We are pleased
to also be able to offer our resources in support of the work of this important
Commission. A well-considered and unified plan to build and maintain resilient
Caribbean communications infrastructure is a humanitarian necessity and our
collective responsibility," said Commissioner Bevil Wooding, who is the
Caribbean Outreach Liaison at ARIN and a founding member of the Caribbean
Network Operators Group.

In 2017, Hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall in Anguilla, Barbuda,
Dominica,
the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, St. Barts, St. Martin/Sint Maarten, Turks
and Caicos, the British Virgin Islands and the United States Virgin Islands.

On June 1, 2018, the next Atlantic hurricane season begins. The
establishment of
the Commission is a positive and necessary step, to increase the resilience of
regional communications infrastructure to extreme recurrent natural events.

Photo: Caribbean Telecommunications Union Secretary General Bernadette Lewis

By Gerard Best

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