As Latin American Internet users look on, Raul Echeberria (left), Executive Director of LACNIC, and Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO of ICANN, sign mutual agreements at ICANN 43 in Costa Rica.
San Jose, Costa Rica – At the ICANN 43 meeting ongoing this week, the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Addresses Registry (LACNIC) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) signed an agreement pledging to work together to increase the number of L-Root locations in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“L-Root” refers to one of thirteen computers that anchor the globe’s Domain Name Service (DNS). Where computers locate one another on a network by numeric address, humans find it easier to use and remember names (for instance, users typically remember “ICANN.org” more easily than its IP address, 2620:0:2d0:200::7.) The Domain Name System matches domain names with their correct numeric addresses on the Internet.
There are 13 “root,” or fully authoritative, DNS servers, identified by alphabetic letters A through M — the “L” root being one. Spreading the root information out geographically by duplicating the root servers leads to a resilient, dispersed system that cannot be taken offline by a problem at any single instance of a given DNS root server.
Under the signed agreement, LACNIC is willing to help ICANN strengthen the resilience of the DNS further by adding additional physical locations that host the L-Root. LACNIC will help identify suitable locations and will also finance the required equipment in each location.
Raul Echeberria, Executive Director of LACNIC, commented, “We are very pleased with this agreement signed with ICANN, which will allow LACNIC to extend the work done since 2004 with the project +RAICES. It is a concrete contribution to improve the stability and the benefits of the Internet in the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Rod Beckstrom, President and CEO of ICANN, said, “We thank LACNIC for giving us this magnificent opportunity to continue to deploy the L-Root in this region and to strengthen our relationship with LACNIC. Having a diversity of locations for name servers strengthens the global Internet.”
