In 2019, the Number of New Members Increased by 30% in the Countries Visited by LACNIC

In the midst of the current coronavirus pandemic, the Internet has proven to be a very useful tool, particularly for the technical community of Latin America and the Caribbean, where it has made it possible to hold the first online LACNIC event. By the second day of the meeting, more than 1520 participants had registered for the event.

While presenting the 2019 Annual Report, LACNIC CEO Oscar Robles highlighted how the organization is working with smaller ISPs in the region. This work has allowed an average increase of 30% in the number of new members in the countries the organization visited last year. In this sense, he observed that LACNIC had been present at ten events attended by a total of more than 4,500 participants in Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Mexico.

Colombia led the growth of new members with an increase of 84% compared to 2018, followed by Mexico (64%), Ecuador (23%) and Argentina (14%).

Throughout 2019, LACNIC registered 1,564 new members, which represented an 18.5% growth of its membership base and allowed the organization to close the year with 10,039 members. Since then, more than 500 new organizations have joined LACNIC, which now has a total of 10,568 members.

Resource Assignment

In his report, Robles highlighted the 8% increase in the number of assigned IPv4 addresses compared to 2018.

Transfers Within the LACNIC Region

LACNIC’s CEO reported that 23 IPv4 transfers were registered in the LACNIC region last year. He added that, since the implementation of the policy allowing intra-RIR transfers, LACNIC has registered a total of 55 transactions involving 305,000 IP addresses. As the chart above shows, Colombia was the country that acquired the highest number of addresses, while Paraguay let go of the most IPv4 address blocks.

New Services and Visits

The 2019 report also shows the new services launched by LACNIC, including the Internet Routing Registry, a new channel for expressing routing policies and improving Internet security and stability; IP-Based Geolocation (Geofeeds); and the  MiLACNIC API for the automation of resource management operations.

As for the program for involving members in LACNIC’s institutional life promoted by the organization since 2015, Robles reported that, in 2019, 53 visits were made in Curaçao, Belize, Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador. 

Campus and Webinars: More than 10,000 Participants

Robles noted that the LACNIC Campus allows LACNIC to stay close to its customers and the community, particularly thanks to the constant increase in its training offerings. In this sense, new courses were added last year (an English version of the IPv6 course, Introduction to Network Management, Introduction to Network Security) and it was announced that a version 2.0 of the Basic IPv6 and IPv6 in Last-Mile Networks will be launched this year.

The report presented by Robles showed the significant growth in the number of students enrolled in the LACNIC Campus: 6764 in 2019 vs. 4471 in 2018. Robles also noted that 3,074 students had passed the courses that were offered last year. “A fairly high number for online standards,” he added.

Robles also mentioned the more than 20 webinars held during 2019, as well as the special event that was organized to mark the 50^th anniversary of the Internet, with the special participation of Internet pioneers Steve Crocker, Charles Kline and Leonard Kleinrock.

FORT, IPv6 and AYITIC

The report also featured the Ayitic Goes Global project and its transformative role of technology for women and online training as an impact strategy in Latin America and the Caribbean. Robles noted that this effort will transcend, as Google will replicate it in other countries of Central America.

Robles also highlighted the work of the FORT Project (FORT Validator and FORT Monitoring) during 2019, a project developed by LACNIC and NIC MX with the support of the Open Technology Fund.

He stressed the level of IPv6 deployment in the region, where the current penetration rate is 21% – last year the global penetration rate was 31%. “We must redouble our efforts in this sense,” LACNIC’s CEO noted. One such program seeks to organize personalized visits to decision-makers.

Robles highlighted the improvements to LACNIC’s internal processes which began to be introduced in 2018 and will conclude this year with the purpose of having reliable information systems that will allow timely decision-making at the strategic and operational levels.

The Annual Report presented by Robles dedicated a chapter to the strengthening of the organization’s internal infrastructure with the addition of new blades and storage technology, where LACNIC is migrating its virtualized services and installing new ones. This technology increases operational efficiency, provides high hardware availability, and improves the use of space and energy efficiency.

As for the development of human capital, Robles reported that, for the eighth year in a row, LACNIC ranked as one of the best places to work in Uruguay, having reached its best historical evaluation with an overall satisfaction level of 93%.

The LACNIC staff is currently comprised of professionals from ten different countries: Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Spain, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela.

FOUR PILLARS

To conclude, Robles presented the four organizational values on which LACNIC worked during 2019. The commitment to creating value for our members and for the Internet community of Latin America and the Caribbean; the conviction that success can only be achieved through teamwork and that everyone has something to contribute; an organization oriented to continuous improvement and striving to achieve better results each day; and special care for the organization’s employees and a commitment to their development.

The full text of the 2019 Annual Report is available here. The presentation is available here.