Each one of the hundreds of millions of devices connected to the Internet, be it a computer, a mobile telephone, a videogame, or whatever, is equipped with a unique identification mechanism that makes it possible to communicate to and from that device. That identification mechanism is usually a number, known as the IP number, which is unique to the device and distinguishes it from all others.

To spare the user from having to memorize the IP number of his or her device and those of the devices with which she or he wishes to communicate, a system was invented, known as the Domain Name System (DNS), designed to make communication more user-friendly. The DNS provides easy-to-remember names, grouped under certain categories or suffixes, which make it possible to identify devices in the network. There are “generic” suffixes, such as the famous .com and there are “country codes,” such as .mx for Mexico. With each of those suffixes, domain names are registered that ultimately constitute our identity on the network: our web page, our e-mail, our blog, and so on.

To preserve the uniqueness of each name in the Internet routing system, major coordination is required. A host of organizations all over the world strive to avoid any possibility of confusion when it comes to identifying each connected device. Some organizations take it upon themselves to assign huge blocks of IP numbers in each part of the world; others devote themselves to registering dominion names under each suffix, as well as to translating those domain names swiftly into IP numbers. There are hundreds of organizations behind the Internet routing system working to enable users to communicate with one another with the ease and immediacy typical of the Internet.

But who coordinates all those organizations? The Organization that, at the global level, coordinates all those involved in Internet routing, is known as ICANN or the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names. It is a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1998 and based in the United States. Its aim is to achieve self-regulation in order to take decisions regarding the future of Internet addresses. ICANN has a unique modus operandi: it is an organization open to anyone who wishes to influence decisions to ensure that Internet addresses function properly. It is known as a model for establishing consensus “from the bottom up,” whereby the whole worldwide Internet community – comprising a range of interest groups, from commercial companies to nonprofits (e.g., user and consumer associations,  attorneys defending registered trade names on the Internet), technical groups, registry operators, and, in a special way, governments -- participates in decisions regarding Internet addresses.

For the first time in the 10-year history of ICANN, the Corporation actually held a meeting: in March 2009, in Mexico City. More than 1,000 participants from over 100 countries expressed their views on important topics that will shape not just the future of addresses but the very way we will use the Internet in the years to come.

Major progress was made at that meeting, for instance with respect to expanding, in the short term, the number of “generic” suffixes available (currently there are 21), which will make room for proposals such as .paris, .music, .lat (“latino”), and hundreds more that will be reviewed for inclusion in the Internet’s master directory. One of the principal considerations driving this process of introducing new Internet suffixes as a matter of increasing urgency is the need to allow proposals for suffixes that are in non-Latin characters; in Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Hindi, and so on. That is known as “Internationalized Domain Names” and it will open up the Internet to a huge part of the world that does not use the Latin alphabet.

At the ICANN meeting in Mexico City, important measures were also adopted to deal with the fact that IP numbers in their current version (IPv4) are running out. Nowadays, so many devices are connected to the network – with many more to come in the future – that numbers available in the IPv4 format are almost all assigned; that is to say, there will not be enough IPv4 numbers to enable each device connected to the network to have a unique address of its own. Given the dearth of addresses, a protocol, called IPv6, was developed, offering practically inexhaustible room for addresses. Adopting the IPv6 will require major investment in equipment and changes in the technical configuration of the network, as well as the development of software compatible with that protocol. Although adoption of the IPv6 is imminent, several incentives have to be created to ensure its rapid dissemination.

At the ICANN meeting in Mexico, the Corporation’s Board decided that the remaining five large blocks of IPv4 would be distributed equitably among the regional organizations, without the usual requirement to prove a need for those addresses. This will benefit the Latin America region, since it will dispose of IPv4 addresses for a while longer than other regions, which will in turn mean that it has more time in which to adopt the IPv6 protocol.

The above are examples of the decisions being taken in connection with this logical, immaterial, and, for many, invisible layer of Internet addresses. Following Mexico, the ICANN community will next meet in Sydney, and then in Seoul. It will take a year or more before the venue returns to the Americas.

Meanwhile, the fine performance of the routing system will continue to explain the success of the Internet and its growth over the coming decades. The nice thing about addresses is that they make the Internet easy to use and enable us to communicate with one another immediately in any part of the world. ICANN’s open and dynamic decision- making model makes it possible to achieve global coordination of all the organizations making up the inner workings of the Internet. That is why there is a single address system and one that works.

Pablo Hinojosa
Regional Liaison for Latin America
Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names, ICANN