Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority Contributes to Responsive and Resilient Internet with L-Root Instance in Marshall Islands

Majuro, Marshall Islands… The L-Root instance in the Marshall Islands has been successfully installed in Majuro, increasing the Domain Name System's (DNS) overall fault tolerance and its resilience against certain types of cyber threats, such as Denial of Service (DoS) attacks.

The launch of the L-Root server node is a joint operation between ICANN and Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority (NTA), who supplied the equipment necessary for the installation of the new L-Root node. NTA also provided the colocation in their datacenter and the bandwidth needed for the node's operation.

"We are very happy to host the L-root node in the Marshall Islands. This will help to contribute to the security and stability of the Internet network, and improve the quality of the Internet for our Internet users. By creating greater redundancy in the DNS, we can improve the reliability of a fast and secure network for all users," said Thomas Kijiner, Jr., President & CEO of NTA.

"I am very pleased with our partnership with NTA. We have a very close working relationship with the Marshall Islands' key Internet stakeholders and I am happy to facilitate the deployment of the root server instance into the region," said Savé Vocea, ICANN's Vice President of Global Stakeholder Engagement for Australasia.

This cooperation signifies an effort between ICANN and NTA to enhance the security, stability and resiliency of the DNS for Marshall Islands' Internet users and reduce the response time experienced when making some DNS queries.

"ICANN operates L-Root as a public benefit service for the global Internet and is pleased to expand L-Root with an instance in the Marshall Islands. We appreciate the tremendous efforts from NTA in hosting the L-Root as this commitment both improves root zone DNS service and augments the technical stability and resilience of DNS in the region," said Terry Manderson, Director of DNS Engineering at ICANN.

There are 13 "root" DNS servers, identified by the letters A through M — the "L" root server operated by ICANN being one. Computers typically communicate with each other using numeric addresses, while humans find it easier to use and remember names (for instance, users typically remember the domain name "ICANN.ORG" more easily than the Internet Protocol address, 2620:0:2d0:200::7). The DNS translates domain names into addresses and the root servers provide the pointers to the servers for top-level domains (the last part of domain names, for example, "ORG" in "ICANN.ORG").

Spreading the service that provides these pointers out geographically by duplicating the root servers leads to a more resilient, dispersed system that reduces the risk of users being taken offline by a problem or attack and reduces the time it takes to look up names on the Internet.

For more information about L-root, please visit www.dns.icann.org/.

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Media Contacts

ICANN

Fiona Aw
Global Communications Coordinator
Tel: +65 6816 1264
Mobile: +65 9113 6621
Email: fiona.aw@icann.org

Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority

Thomas Kijiner, Jr.
President & CEO
Tel: +692 625 3862
Email: tkijiner@minta.mh

About ICANN

ICANN's mission is to help ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet, you need to type an address into your computer or other device – a name or a number. That address must be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN helps coordinate and support these unique identifiers across the world. ICANN was formed in 1998 as a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation and a community with participants from all over the world.

For more information, please visit: www.icann.org

About Marshall Islands National Telecommunications Authority (NTA)

Marshall Islands' National Telecommunications Authority is a private corporation with significant ownership by the National Government. It is the authorized sole provider of telecommunications services and is responsible for providing domestic and international voice, fax, data, and Internet services to and from the Marshall Islands.

For more information, please visit www.minta.mh