i.root-servers.net in Kenya
Embargoed Until: 10AM (UCT +1), Tuesday, 3 July 2012 Nairobi, Kenya/Stockholm, Sweden:
TESPOK and Netnod have today announced that an instance of i.root- servers.net will be installed in one of TESPOK’s data centres. This is the fourth DNS root server in Kenya, and the installation will thus contribute to the reliability and redundancy in DNS services to Internet users in Kenya and surrounding regions.
“This is an exciting step to take to improve the Internet in Kenya. We are delighted to be working together with such a reputable organisation as Netnod. It is one of the most trusted names in DNS with extensive experience in anycasting and DNS operations. Anycast is today an established method of improving resilience and redundancy of the DNS. This deployment is critical as it supports Internet access in Africa. We are looking forward to more deployments of this kind in the future,” says Fiona Asonga, CEO of TESPOK.
“We are enthusiastic to deploy an i.root-servers.net instance in Kenya and to have it co-located with TESPOK,” says Kurt Erik Lindqvist, CEO of Netnod. “This root server will not only benefit the Kenyan Internet community, but also Internet communities in the surrounding region, in terms of faster domain resolution and increased resilience within the region as a whole. This installation is part of Netnod’s efforts to continuously increase the i.root-servers.net footprint and thereby increase the performance and robustness of the root server system worldwide. This is particularly important in the African region where deployments of instances of root servers still only exist in very limited numbers.”
Root servers are a critical part of the Internet's Domain Name System (DNS), providing information about authoritative servers for all Top Level Domains (TLDs) (such as ".com", ".org", ".ke", ".fr" and ".jp"). Computers need this information to interpret web-addresses, e-mail addresses, and perform other types of Internet transactions.
For more information, please contact:
TESPOK Fiona Asonga, CEO at TESPOK
Phone: +254 721 713504
Email: tespok@tespok.co.ke
Netnod Kurt Erik Lindqvist,
CEO at Netnod
Phone: +46 8 562 860 00
Email: kurtis@netnod.se
About TESPOK
Telecommunications Service Providers Association of Kenya (TESPOK) is a professional, non-profit organization representing the interests of telecommunication service providers in Kenya. Established in 1999, TESPOK has been running and managing the Kenya Internet Exchange Point (KIXP) since 2002. KIXP has over the past couple of years been one of the fastest growing IXPs globally, with a growth rate of over 100% and traffic from 110ASN – of which 52% are from within the African continent. The strength of the Association rests on its ability to be truly representative of the entire telecommunications industry as a whole.
About Netnod
Netnod is a non-profit, neutral and independent Internet infrastructure organisation based in Sweden. Netnod provides DNS anycast and unicast slave services to TLDs worldwide through its highly respected and robust DNSNODE product. Netnod is also the proud operator of i.root-servers.net, one of the thirteen logical DNS root name servers in the world – a critical part of the Internet underlying infrastructure. This service is provided as a public service to the Internet community at-large, as part of Netnod’s goal to work for the “Good of the Internet”. Finally, Netnod operates six exchanges in five different cities in Sweden where Internet operators exchange traffic. The Netnod IX has among the highest amount of traffic per peer in Europe and is fully IPv6 enabled.