The Latin America and Caribbean Network Information Centre[1] (LACNIC, Spanish: Registro de Direcciones de Internet para América Latina y Caribe, Portuguese: Registro de Endereçamento da Internet para América Latina e Caribe) is the Regional Internet Registry for the Latin American and Caribbean regions.
LACNIC[2] provides number resource allocation and registration services that support the global operation of the Internet. It is a not-for-profit, membership-based organisation whose members include Internet Service Providers, and similar organisations.
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LACNIC's main functions are:
Since 1993, academic organizations in Latin America like ENRED – Foro de Redes de Americá Latina y El Caribe, discussed the need of a register for Latin America. In 1998 during an ENRED meeting in Panamá including NIC-MX, this theme was discussed and they learned that another group formed by commercial organizations like CABASE — Camara Argentina de Base de Datos y Servicio em Línea and e-COMLAC (Latin America and Caribbean Federation for Internet and Electronic Commerce), were also discussing the idea of a Latin American registry.
On January 30, 1998, Ira Magaziner, then the senior adviser to President Clinton for policy development, released a discussion paper, known as the "green paper" after the DNS root authority incident. A revised version known as the "white paper" was released on June 5. This paper proposed a new organization to handle internet resources (that later became ICANN). Following this release, a number of groups organized conferences to discuss its proposal and make suggestions, among them, the IFWP or International Forum for the White Paper.
IFWP organized four meetings, the last one in Buenos Aires, where several South Americans distinguished persons and organizations participated and got to know each other. Among them Oscar Messano, Anthony Harris and Edmundo Valiente from CABASE, Fabio Marinho, member of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) and President of ASSESPRO – Associação Brasileira de Empresas de Software Serviços de Informática e Internet, Raimundo Beca - AHCIET – Association Hispanoamericana de Centros de Investigacion y Empresas de Telecomunicaciones, Brasil, NIC México - Oscar Robles and German Valdez, y Julian Dunayevich, Raul Echeverria, ENRED.
Those organizations joined by eCOMLAC – Federación Latino Americana y Caribeña para Internet y el Comercio Electrônico, argumented that Latin American IPs addresses could be handled by a local entity and reached an agreement for its creation. Others persons participated in these early discussion, among the Eliezer Cadenas (ENRED), Fidel Vienegas (AHCIET), Raphael Mandarino (CGI.br).
Finally, the agreement for creation of LACNIC (Latin American and Caribbean IP Address Regional Registry), was signed in Santiago de Chile on August 22, 1999 during the second ICANN meeting.
An Interim Board was defined with six members:
Next step, this LACNIC Interim Board submitted on August 26, 1999, this agreement to Esther Dyson, then Chair of ICANN Interim Board for ICANN approval.
A Business Plan of this new organization was developed and presented to ARIN, the organization responsible for this region at that moment. Statutes were created and it was decided that LACNIC headquarters would be in Montevideo, with technical people and equipment in São Paulo, in NIC.br premises.
LACNIC, being in full conformance with the criteria[3] for a new Regional Internet Registry as set forth by the Internet Registry community and ICANN, was formally recognized by ICANN during its Shanghai meeting in 2002.[4]
LACNIC was established in 2001, with administrative offices in Montevideo, Uruguay and technical facilities provided by CGI.br[5] of São Paulo.
The LACNIC consists of:
| Name | Position | Country of residence | Term ends |
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President | Argentina | December, 2011 |
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Vice President | Mexico | December, 2011 |
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Treasurer | Brazil | December, 2012 |
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Deputy Treasurer | Colombia | December, 2012 |
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Secretary | Mexico | December, 2013 |
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Deputy Secretary | Mexico | December, 2012 |
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Vogal | Brazil | December, 2013 |
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Executive Director | Uruguay |
German Valdez (1999-2003)
Raimundo Beca (1999-2004)
Jesus Martinez (2004-2006)
Carlos Neira (2007–2009)
Fabio Marinho (1999-2010)
Organizations that receive IP addresses directly from LACNIC automatically become members. According the size of the address space each organization administers, there are different member categories and levels. Membership is open to any interested person or organization; this means that those organizations that do not receive IP addresses directly from LACNIC can also apply for membership.
It is not necessary to become a member of LACNIC prior to applying for IP address space (or any other resource), nor will doing so make it easier to obtain them.
For detailed information about member categories, rights, and obligations see the LACNIC webpage.[6]
Since its creation, LACNIC has adopted an active cooperation policy seeking to consolidate itself as an organization, to strengthen its involvement in the growth and development of the Internet within the region, and to satisfy its primary purpose of Internet resource management for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean.
An example of this are the initial agreements signed with Comite Gestor do Internet Brazil and NIC Mexico. Through the first agreement it was possible to have the technical infrastructure and human resources necessary for LACNIC's operational center in the city of São Paulo during the first two years of its existence. In the case of the agreement with NIC Mexico, it was possible to implement LACNIC's training plans at the expense of said organization, through the preparation of material and the organization of meetings in different countries of our region.
These two agreements have had a very important role in LACNIC's achievement of stability and viability during its initial stages.
Likewise, we believe that by generating different cooperation agreements and activities LACNIC can make a significant contribution to the strengthening of the institution as well as to the growth and development of the Internet community within the region.
LACNIC's participation in each agreement is varied and depends on the capabilities that are available in each case, but the intention is always to complement the resources and actions of each organization. For this reason, in some cases it participates by using its own funds or obtaining funds from outside the region, in others by facilitating the institutionalization of regional organizations, integrating and co-participating in the organization of forums and other events as well as supporting research on strategic issues.
Thus, although it is not its primary role, LACNIC contributes to the growth and evolution of the regional Internet community, enhancing its international presence and relevance, resulting in a greater degree of involvement and effect on policy definition and global resource management of the network at international level.
With the other RIRs, LACNIC is a member of the Number Resource Organization (NRO), which exists to protect the unallocated number resource pool, to promote and protect the bottom-up policy development process, and to be the focal point for input into the RIR system.
These include the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet Engineering Policy Group (IEPG),[7] the Internet Society (ISOC), and others.
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