PICISOC.niue.nu

The Internet Society in the Pacific

Pacific GIS & RS User Conference

Pacific GIS & RS User Conference

The Pacific GIS & Remote Sensing Council (PGRSC) was established to oversee the activities of the Pacific Islands Annual GIS & RS User Conference in response to the need to outsource its administration and procurement processes.

The Pacific GIS & RS Conference is the largest opportunity for Pacific Island and related stakeholders to share experiences and knowledge in the development and use of GIS and Remote Sensing tools and products.

The Annual Pacific GIS & RS Conference for 2019 will be held from the 25th to the 29th of November at the University of the South Pacifics (USP) Japan ICT Auditorium

For more details, please visit: PGRSC Website

Click links:

The Pacific GIS & Remote Sensing Council (PGRSC) was established to oversee the activities of the Pacific Islands Annual GIS & RS User Conference in response to the need to outsource its administration and procurement processes.

The Pacific GIS & RS Conference is the largest opportunity for Pacific Island and related stakeholders to share experiences and knowledge in the development and use of GIS and Remote Sensing tools and products.

The Annual Pacific GIS & RS Conference for 2019 will be held from the 25th to the 29th of November at the University of the South Pacifics (USP) Japan ICT Auditorium

For more details, please visit: PGRSC Website

Click links:

Press Release 14 March 2019

At its board meeting held on Friday 14th March, 2019, in Kobe, Japan, it was announced that the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will transfer the .vu top level domain name from Telecom Vanuatu Limited (TVL) to the Telecommunications Radiocommunications and Broadcasting Regulator (TRBR).

TVL decided their preference is to be a Registrar in the future, primarily so they may retain a direct relationship with their domain name customers.

TVL has been responsible for management of the .vu domain name for Vanuatu since its initial delegation on 10 April 1995.

Under the “Vanuatu Domain Name Management and Administration Regulation Order No 206 of 2016” TRBR is required to manage.vu, and to attend to the process of splitting the Registry and Registrar functions of this domain name. Under a Shared Registry System (SRS), a single Registry Operator for .vu will be appointed, and TVL and other Registrars who are approved by TRBR will be able to interact directly into the registry for their respective customers domains.

This introduces competition at a local and global level for the domain names available within the Registry. TRBR are also proceeding with negotiations with a preferred Registry Provider, after having gone through an open and competitive tender process. Nine tender responses were received from both within Vanuatu and from international providers, and after separate technical and financial evaluation panels completed their assessment of these bids, a preferred registry operator has been selected. TRBR are currently negotiating a contract with this operator, and an announcement will be made later this month if negotiations can be successfully settled. These changes set the scope for a competitive market for .vu domain names.

TRBR has created an environment where multiple Registrars can make their own unique offerings and pricing for .vu names. TRBR wants to encourage the establishment of local Registrars in Vanuatu, and believes the environment will encourage the other local Internet Service Providers and possibly web designers will consider becoming Registrars or Resellers of .vu names.

A strong collaboration between TRBR and the new Registry Operator is expected to lead to growth of the number of .vu names through international Registrars and resellers across the Internet. The Government of Vanuatu has set the stage for these changes to occur and TRBR acknowledges the hard work done to create this platform. TRBR has followed up the Regulation over the past two years and developed policies for .vu through consensus based development processes within the local Internet community.

TRBR is grateful for the input from the industry stakeholders, various Government Departments, and the local Internet community, in coming together for multistakeholder dialogue and decisions, which culminate with this positive decision from ICANN.

TRBR wishes to thank Keith Davidson, from New Zealand for his guidance in achieving the important milestone on the transfer of the .vu domain name, and also in the process used in selecting the new Registry Operator. TRBR also extends its gratitude to InternetNZ, which operates the .nz Registry, and their .nz self-Regulator, the Domain Name Commissioner, for their high level of support to TRBR over many years.

ICANN is the global body that manages the Internet’s unique identifiers, including the Top Level Domains for countries and the generic names like .org or .com. ICANN will update the IANA database at the core of the Internet to reflect this transfer in the near future.

Click to read original Press Release

By Jonathan Brewer 
(Originally published on APNIC Blog on 23 Jan 2019)


Manatua is a new submarine cable that will link Samoa with Tahiti, picking up Niue, Aitutaki, Rarotonga, and Bora Bora along the way. Its Rarotonga and Aitutaki landings will be the first fibre optic connectivity for the Cook Islands, who today access the Internet through an O3b medium-earth-orbit satellite link to Honolulu.
Manatua will bring traffic from the Cook Islands to the landings of several existing submarine cables, with onwards connectivity to Australia, New Zealand and the United States.
The diagram below is a simplified view of that connectivity set up like a subway map.

Figure 1 — Manatua and its interconnections in the Pacific.

Once the Cook Islands are connected to their neighbours via Manatua, what will be the best way for them to connect to the global Internet? We’ll explore that topic today.

About the Cook Islands

The Cook Islands is one of the most remote places on earth. Around 18,000 people live in the Cook Islands, with 75% of the population concentrated on the island of Rarotonga. Another 60,000 Cook Islanders live in New Zealandand 16,000 in Australia.

Tourism accounts for 60% of the GDP of the Cook Islands, well ahead of any other industry or exports. More than 160,000 tourists visited in 2017 with nearly three quarters coming from Australia or New Zealand. Aside from tourism, the Cook Islands’ economy is supported by primary industries like fishing, with most exports going to Japan and Thailand, and to a lesser degree, offshore banking and asset protection used mainly by Americans.

Project background

The Manatua cable will be a point-to-point connection between Apia and Tahiti, with branching units to Niue, Aitutaki, Rarotonga and Bora Bora. It will solve problems for all connected parties. French Polynesia has wanted to improve the resilience of their single cable since it was commissioned in 2010. Samoa has a goal of becoming the Information Technology hub for the South Pacific by 2020. And the Cook Islands has been thinking of moving away from satellite since 2013; their Manatua project having been underway since 2016.

In October 2018, all of the financial issues between the parties were agreedupon, and TE Subcom was contracted to build the cable on 20 November. Cook Island obligations are being funded with a USD 15 million grant from the New Zealand government, and a USD 15 million loan from Asia Development Bank (ADB). The Cook Islands’ government will have a five-year grace period, a 20-year repayment term on the loan, and a floating interest rate based on LIBOR.

What good is a submarine cable?

Elected officials and government representatives in the Pacific often talk about submarine fibre being a faster connection to the global Internet, but in practice they mean a faster connection to the USA. Samoa Submarine Cable Company’s reference offering, for example, is a point-to-point service that connects Samoan users to the Internet in San Jose, California.

Connecting to the USA however isn’t always what users of the Internet want. A representative of the local media said the local carrier finds most of its traffic destined for a few sites:

While all these services are available in California, every single one is also available in Sydney, and some in Suva and Auckland. And users of these services from Australia and New Zealand are likely to have their personal data stored on servers in their home markets, not in the USA.

After connections to popular cloud services, what do people use the Internet for? Voice and video calling. This means Skype, Facetime, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and others. If most of those calls are to Australia, New Zealand, or export markets like Japan or Thailand, is sending all Internet traffic to the USA a good idea at all?

All of these services — social media and calling alike — depend on fast connections between users and servers to work well. In most cases, a return-trip delay (or latency) of more than 240 ms will be perceived as slow.

The best ways to connect

Getting the best performance for Internet users should be a goal of operators using the new cable. Here we’ll look at a few different ways the Cook Islands could connect to the Internet and how it would impact performance on their users.

Figure 2 — Samoa Submarine Cable: Capacity lease.
Figure 3 — Samoa Submarine Cable: IRU + Fintel.
Figure 4 — Office des Postes et Télécommunication (OPT): Honotua.
Figure 5 — SAS + Hawaiki.

In summary

The table below sums up options, banding latencies as sub-100 ms (green), 100-200 ms (yellow), and over 200 ms (blue).

In an ideal world, the Manatua cable would connect the Pacific Islands to each other, and Internet capacity would be available for purchase inexpensively in hubs like Samoa and Fiji. Traffic from the Cook Islands would take any available path, and the lowest latency connection to all endpoints would always be used. The Cook Islands would send its California-bound traffic via Tahiti, its Fiji-bound traffic via Samoa, and its Australia and New Zealand traffic on Hawaiki.

That said, Australia and New Zealand traffic should be considered above all else, because from a cultural and economic perspective, the Cook Islands looks west, not east to the USA.

Commercial realities mean it’s unlikely the Cook Islands will be able to get economic connectivity from its neighbours, and a single-path solution will be taken to meet the economy’s needs, perhaps backed up using existing satellite arrangements. In that case, the obvious winner from an end-user perspective will be a short hop from Apia to Pago Pago, and service on the Hawaiki Cable.

The Internet Society Asia Pacific Bureau and the ISOC Delhi Chapter hosted a webinar on Diversity and Inclusion.

There was a key note address from Japleen Pasricha; a feminist, an activist, Founder and Editor-in-chief of Feminism in India followed by updates from ISOC Mumbai, ISOC Malaysia, ISOC Sri Lanka; ISOC Nepal, ISOC Afghanistan and PICISOC.

The webinar identified what diversity is and why we need diversity. The different social positions of people and the need to bring people at the margins to the centre in-order to have richer conversations and contributions.

It highlighted the technology gap between men and women, identifying tech spaces as male dominated with programs aimed at getting more girls and women into STEM.

The technology gap is reflected on the internet with less women accessing the internet.

In India surveillance, linguistic barriers, societal barriers like censorship and online harassment were identified as some reasons less women access the internet. Trolling, Doxing and revenge porn were also identified as reasons.

It has become hard to identify whether online harassment can be classified as harassment because it is done online, also whether calling one out for speaking their mind or not letting one speak their mind can be considered a violation of ones right to exist online.

Japleen concluded her key note with: “To make any space safe or diverse, have people from that community represented in that space”.

To have more women on the internet in order to make it safer for women and for women to reclaim the space to make it safer for each other.

Shveta from the ISOC Mumbai Chapter quoted a poem from Charles Bennafield in her brief:

“I’m diversity embrace me and we’ll journey far. I’m Diversity include me and we will reach the shining star.”

For PICISOC, I provided the update of the PICISOC board having recently elected 3 women into its key positions of Vice Chair: Anju Mangal, Secretary: Maureen Hilyard and Treasurer: Cherie Lagakali.

The PICOSOC board has formalized its code of conduct and netiquette documents for the mailing list and its members. This is to level the playing field and ensure discussions are relevant, inclusive and also to discourage bullying.

PICISOC is working to encourage and enhance participation by reintroducing PacINET, a networking event for Pacific Islanders in technology and training, have a Pacific IGF and Vanuatu will be having its first national IGF in May, 2019.

There were 5 PICISOC members who attended ICANN 63 and 2 will attend ICANN 64, one of which is founder of coco nets, a network of women in ICT in Tonga.

To view this webinar on LIVESTREAM: https://livestream.com/internetsociety/diversity/

Cherie Lagakali is a programmer, presently works as a Database Consultant for Rosie Holidays Fiji. She is a board member of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society (PICISOC) and is a member of the Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) multistakeeholder working group.

The Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum 2018 Port Vila Synthesis Document “Key Issues in the Asia Pacific – Empowering Communities in Asia Pacific to build an Affordable, Inclusive, Open and Secure Internet” is now published.

Thank you for all the community input and contribution.

Download/view:

Synthesis Document: https://ftp.asia/data/public/2018syndoc  

Appendices: https://ftp.asia/data/public/2018syndocappendices

Purpose:

The Synthesis Document aims to collect the contributions and outputs of participants at the APrIGF meeting (as well as those within the broader APrIGF community through remote participation and dissemination on the mailing list and online platform). The APrIGF Multistakeholder Steering Group (MSG) and the Drafting Committee accept that the Synthesis Document cannot be fully representative of the very diverse Asia Pacific region. Nevertheless, they anticipate that the development of this Synthesis Document can help drive active participation in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) process and demonstrate the value of the annual APrIGF meeting as a platform for voices, views and thoughts in the Asia Pacific region as a contribution to relevant global, national, local and international forums on Internet governance.

Mr Emani Liu, Chair

Emani is a home grown techie with a passion for serving the underserved with Internet.Since leaving school (a few short years…decades) he has been at the forefront of Niue’s development in wifi to become the supposedly first Wifi Nation in the world. In a bit of an irony, those same skills and networks he now uses in a developed country to connect its rural and remote areas. It’s not just us in the Small Island States that have connectivity issues! In regional and international forums, Emani has advocated for better connectivity for our people. At one of the forums, he talked about connectivity as none other than the father of the internet – Vint, supported those in the developed world. It was at that moment that he realised, our voice needed to be heard more and with the arrival of new satellites and undersea cables, the mumble jumbles are finally becoming a reality. The foundation is here for us but we must push further than before to include every dot in our ocean so that the underserved can be fully served with internet. Only then, can our people bridge onto the digital highway and utilise it for their particular needs. What good would this email list be if those that truly need the support can’t even download the email? PacINET may have been the vehicle of the past but with everyone connected, a virtual PacINET would indeed be the future

Mr Andrew Molivurae, Vice Chair (Technical)

Andrew Molivurae is Ni-Vanuatu working as Internet Governance & Child Online Protection Officer with the Telecommunications & Radiocommunications Regulator (TRR). Prior to that he was IT Billing Engineer for Digicel Vanuatu Ltd, IT Manager for Vanuatu SDA Mission, Internet Technician for Telecom Vanuatu Ltd and Systems Administrator for Vanuatu Financial Services Commission. Apart from the full time jobs, he was also founding Chair of Vanuatu IT Users Society (VITUS) which is a legal ICT Charitable Association in Vanuatu and an ICANN ALS (with over 200 members) that was formed in 2005.  He has been a member of the Pacific Chapter of the ISOC since 2004, was a Board member from 2007 to 2011 and was Chair and Vice Chair of the PICISOC Board from 2009 to 2011. As Member of the Vanuatu National ICT Development Committee he has been an advocate for ICT development in Vanuatu for over 10 years. He has participated in many international ICT meetings that included, 5 ICANN meetings, 3 APrIGF meetings, 2 Pacific IGF meetings, 1 IETF meeting, 6 PICISOC events (PacINET) and some other International events. He has also been an ICANN Fellow at Singapore, Helsinki and Panama last June.  His current role at TRR mainly deals with Internet Governance issues and one key achievement so far is the finalization of the Regulation for the Management and Administration of the .vu ccTLD. He is also engaged in Cyber Security awareness around Vanuatu under the TRR Consumer Protection Regulation Andrew is keen to serve on the PICISOC board again and one key aspect that he would like to see is that the Pacific IGF becomes a key ICT annual event for the Pacific Islands region similar to the previous PaciNET events.

Ms Anju Mangal, Vice Chair (Policy)

Anju Mangal works for the Pacific Community (SPC), a regional Inter-governmental organisation providing technical assistance to the 22 Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs).  Anju was a former Board member of PICISOC when the current ISOC Bureau Director, Rajnesh Singh was the Chairman of the Board many years ago, but she has continued to maintain her regular connection with PICISOC through the mailing list.  Her interest whilst on the board was to promote the interests of women and youth in ICT, an interest that she still supports even today.  While she was on the Board, she successfully managed to secure funding to support innovative projects for women and youth, as well as to promote ICT for disability. She has aways worked with key stakeholders to find quick key solutions to create awareness and understanding of the policies and processes as well as build capacity for national and regional counterparts in the Pacific region.  Anju was also a former member of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) for many years and continue to maintain contact with my MAG colleagues so that she can continue to support the interests of the people in the Pacific. She is also the alumna of the Internet Governance Capacity Building Program, an ISOC Ambassador, Commonwealth IGF, ICANN, APRIGF and APNG fellow. Anju was alsoa fellow at the UN IGF Secretariat in Geneva, Switzerland. She continues to advocate on challenges faced by the Pacific countries in the area of ICT, knowledge management and Internet governance. She continues to be involved in Global Internet Governance processes at regional and national level and promote a multi-stakeholder approach.  She is a firm believer in good governance, transparency and accountability.  Anju is passionate about the Pacific region and wants to continue to make a difference.

Ms Maureen Hilyard, Secretary

Maureen Hilyard was a previous Chair of the PICISOC Board. Her reason for serving on the PICISOC Board again is firstly to help to raise the profile of the Pacific Islands ISOC community in her work on the ALAC and within ICANN. She would like to help PICISOC to strengthen the internet governance efforts of community groups on our small islands. She also wants to promote the interests of women in ICT under ICANN’s umbrella organisation – DNS women. With a colleague who is the President of ISOC Trinidad and Tobago and a former GAC representative for his country, she has established a “Dynamic Coalition on Small Island Developing States in the Internet Economy” which was recently accepted by the Global IGF MAG.  She is currently the Director of the Board of a new gTLD .Asia (Dot Asia) based in Hong Kong and a member of the Public Interest Registry (PIR) Advisory Committee which manages .org (Dot Org) and .ngo (Dot Ngo). PIR is a subsidiary of the Internet Society, which gets its revenues from the sale of .ORG and .NGO domains. She is quite happy to prioritise a PICISOC meeting each month to help with Board governance, while at the same time be promoting PICISOC and the Pacific at any ICANN. Communication is integral to her work ethic and keeping members of Board activities is critical. Also, it is important that the Board works together as a team so that they can functional appropriately.

Mrs. Cherie Lagakali, Treasurer

Cherie has extensive experience in the management of applications and its integration into systems. As an example she has experience equivalent to a Database and Systems Administrator, Application Developer and has extensive knowledge of search engine optimization. Previously she started her career in the banking industry developing Internet related applications. She is currently working in the tourism industry where she spends most of her time modelling business processes and concepts.

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