Annual Internet Forum Draws Regional Networks Operators to Belize

Bevil Wooding

Today, the first day of the fourth annual Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum kicked off in Belize City. The regional event, that is coordinated by the Caribbean Network Operators Group, with support from several organizations across the Caribbean, is looking at new opportunities to strengthen the Caribbean network resilience and expand Internet Exchange Point.  The forum brings together regional and international technology and telecommunications experts to discuss a range of topics related to the internet peering and importance in the region. Cofounder of CarPIF, Bevil Wooding, explains the significance of the event and what it means for technology in the region.

Bevil Wooding, Co-Founder, CarPIF

“Caribbean Peering and Interconnection Forum (CarPIF) is essentially an environment where the persons who are responsible for managing the networks that deliver the internet to us, where they get together to work out how to reduce the cost of delivering that service and how to improve the quality of the service that they deliver. So, it is a Caribbean forum meaning that there are representatives from across the entire region here discussing the issues of peering. We have chosen Belize because Belize has one of the quiet success stories in the region – that is the Belize Internet Exchange Point. So, at the peering forum, persons who manage those networks get together with persons who are looking for content to deliver on those networks. So, at a forum like this you would have Google, Facebook, and Netflix – the big content providers who know that there are consumers in the Caribbean who want to get their content. They come to these forums to try and meet their network counterparts, the persons who run those networks. So, it is a very important part of the development of the local internet environment, but it is also a critical part of the regional development of the environment and that is why we are here in Belize.   Every CARPIF is different and this year the spotlight is on the resilience or the strength and robustness of the internet networks. And we have seen over the last twelve months in particular how damaging it can be when our communication networks go down and how dependent we have become on internet services, not just for games, facebook, and social networking, but for essential communication between persons, communities and business. So, this year we are looking at the lessons learnt from the hurricanes of the 2017 season and the importance of ensuring that our communication networks are strong enough and resilient enough to handle what is to come in the future.”