The Internet Ecosystem

Internet Week Philipsburg, St. Maarten 28 October 2016

• What is the Internet Society (ISOC) • How is the Internet governed? • Main actors (Internet ecosystem) • The future of the Internet & what really matters • Questions?

2 Internet Society

• Founded in 1992 by Internet pioneers • Not for profit international organization

• 150+ organizational members • 65.000+ individual members • 130 local chapters worldwide • Offices: Africa, Asia, Europe, LAC, USA

• Three key areas: • Chapters: the people who USE the Internet • Organizations: the people who BUILD and RUN the Internet • IETF: the people who INVENT, REFINE and ensure an INTEROPERABLE Internet

3 Internet Society (con’t)

• Vision: “The Internet is for everyone”

• ISOC’s mission is "to assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people throughout the world”

• We do this by working in the areas of technical standards, policy development and education/capacity building

4 “The Internet Society is operating on a world stage to help all of the stakeholders of the Internet to understand what the implications of the technology are, what policies are beneficial, and what right and freedoms need to be preserved in the use of this system.”

Vint Cerf

5 What Made Internet Society Unique?

• Almost 25 years of leadership at the intersection of Internet technology, development, and public policy • Organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which sets global Internet Standards • Trusted reputation as neutral and unbiased advocates for the Internet • Broad engagement across stakeholders including industry, government, universities, and civil society • Expert contributors to the World Economic Forum, United Nations bodies, Internet Governance Forum(IGF), OECD, etc. 6 • Access to an international network of experts Internet’s Three Operang Layers

Content and applications standards (HTML, XML, Java) – Promotes creativity and innovation in applications leading to email, World Wide Web, ebanking, wiki, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo, Google, YouTube and much more

Internet protocols and standards (TCP/IP, DNS, SSL) – TCP/IP, controls traffic flow by dividing email and web data into packages before they are transmitted on the Internet

Telecommunications infrastructure – ! Physical network made up of underwater cables, telephone lines, fiber optics, satellites, microwaves, wi-fi, and so on Facilitates transfer of electronic data over the Internet

7 How is the Internet governed?

• Some facts regarding the Internet • Thousands of autonomous networks connected • 250 million domain names registered (>100 million .com, >100 million ccTLDs) • No central control body (chaos???) • Initial focus was not on control but to create something that could grow to a much larger scale • Multi-stakeholder model (openness, collaboration and consensus-oriented decision-making) • Governments, Businesses, Civil Society, Technical Community • “Power” is gained by merits not hierarchy • Effectiveness

• How it has grown and how stable it is

8 The Internet Ecosystem • Two different worlds

• Traditional telecoms/circuit-switched technology • The Internet/packet-switched technology

9 10

The Future of The Internet: What Really Matters? Major discussions going on that could change the Internet that we know today but what really matters?

• Global reach, integrity; • General purpose; • Supports innovation without requiring permission (by anyone); • Accessible – it’s possible to connect to it, build new parts of it, and study it overall; • Based on interoperability and mutual agreement; • Collaboration; • Technology – reusable building blocks; • There are no permanent favourites (AltaVista search service in the 90s…..) 18

Thank you.

Visit us at Galerie Jean-Malbuisson 15, 1775 Wiehle Avenue, Shernon Osepa www.internetsociety.org CH-1204 Geneva, Suite 201, Reston, VA Follow us Switzerland. 20190-5108 USA. Manager Regional Affairs Latin America & the @internetsociety +41 22 807 1444 +1 703 439 2120

Caribbean [email protected]

19 Get involved.

Visit us at Galerie Jean-Malbuisson 15, 1775 Wiehle Avenue, There are many ways to support www.internetsociety.org CH-1204 Geneva, Suite 201, Reston, VA the Internet. Find out today how Follow us Switzerland. 20190-5108 USA. @internetsociety +41 22 807 1444 +1 703 439 2120 you can make an impact.