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Follow UsCIOL: What is the domestic Internet scenario in India? What are the steps that you are taking to safeguard small ISPs vis-a-vis large ISPs?
Govind: The domestic Internet scenario in India is unique with several large and small ISPs spread across a large geographical area. NIXI is a not-for-profit organization under Section 25 of the Companies Act 1956. NIXI is managed and operated on a neutral basis, in line with the best practices for such initiatives globally. Presently, NIXI has 7 nodes operating in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
Equipment have also been deployed at three more nodes at Lucknow & Mohali (Chandigarh), Guwahati but ISPs are yet to start peering at these nodes. At the end of Nov 2011, there were around 164 operational ISPs, out of which 59 were category ‘A’, 58 were category ‘B’ and 47 were category ‘C’. By and large, category ‘A’ ISPs are connected at 4 metro cities only. Very few ISPs are connected at the nodes in state capitals other than metros.
The Routing and Tariff Policy of NIXI attempts at addressing the concerns of the large as well as the small ISPs at the same time keeping the larger national interest in mind by promoting domestic hosting of content as well as saving foreign exchange by keeping domestic traffic within India.
CIOL: With increasing Internet traffic, what's your roadmap for 2015?
Govind: To increase the quantum of traffic exchanged from the present 13 Gbps to 100 Gbps by the year 2015.
What is safe Surfing Campaign for school kids? What are your expectations from this program?
Safe Surfing campaign was done by IAMAI in association with NIXI. The project started on July 25, 2009 and was completed on Feb 4, 2010. The campaign was focused on students of sixth standard and above spreading awareness about Internet, presentation on safe surfing habits, positive offerings of the Internet as a tool for education and knowledge and Do’s and Don'ts of Internet usage.
Some of our key achievements include:
Total 2.5 lakh students and 180 schools were covered.
Increased Internet awareness.
Establishment of 6 Internet training centres with IAMAI during the campaign.
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CIOL: Please give an insight into digital inclusion and WikiGyan programs. Going forward, what are your targets for these programs by 2013?
Govind: The program ‘’Digital Inclusion through Internet Awareness and use’’ was conducted by ISIM (International School of Information Management), University of Mysore, in association with NIXI.
In Digital Inclusion project, ISIM had organized workshops called Internet Safari. Internet Safari was an Internet Awareness Training Program jointly conducted by ISIM, Mysore and NIXI. The training programs were scheduled during April-June 2011 at the ISIM, where students were drawn from various schools.
Through these programs, we were able to promote Internet through increased Internet awareness, brought about through workshops and training program in and around Mysore particularly where the penetration of Internet is low.
The training programme and 8 workshops covered close to 500 students
CIOL: Are the ISPs ready for IPV6 upgrade? What are the steps that you are taking to encourage IPv6?
Govind: ISPs are encouraged to participate in various IPv6 training programs organized by NIXI regularly. Some of the ISPs have already started peering with NIXI on IPv6.
NIXI has taken up a number of steps to encourage IPv6 activities in the country. These include:
Setting up parallel IPv6 Exchange Routers in Mumbai and Delhi Exchange points along with existing dual stack router in Mumbai, Delhi (Noida). At Chennai and Bangalore the existing routers have been made dual stack for enabling IPv6 traffic exchange also.
Apart from hands-on training workshops and awareness seminars, NIXI has also sponsored free of cost training program for 115 engineers across the country for IPv6 online training which include virtual labs for hands-on training in association with NIIT.
CIOL: Please share an insight into the www.registry.in program. What are your expectations from the gTLDs?
Govind: Under NIXI, .IN Registry functions with primary responsibility for managing Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLDs). Registration of .IN domain crossed the one million mark in July, 2011. Presently, 87 registrars have been accredited to offer .IN domain name registration worldwide to customers. It has helped in proliferation of Web hosting in the country and enhancement of Indian language content in the Internet.
Based on the delegation of IDN ccTLD in 7 Indian languages by IANA, it has been decided to begin with introduction of IDNs in Devanagari Script. The other languages IDNs will follow.
The new gTLD program is an initiative that will enable introduction of new gTLD (including both ASCII and Internationalized Domain Names, or IDNs) into the domain name space. One of ICANN’s key commitments is to promote competition in the domain name market while ensuring Internet security and stability. New gTLD helps achieve that commitment. The application period is open till April 12, 2012.