Glossary

4G

Fourth generation of broadband cellular network technology

5G

Fifth generation of broadband cellular network technology

AAAA record

A Domain Name System (DNS) record that holds an Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) address for a domain name.

ADSL

Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line

AfNOG

African Network Operations Group

API

Application Programming Interface

APNIC

Asia Pacific Network Information Centre

ARIN

American Registry for Internet Numbers

AS

Autonomous System

ASN

Autonomous System Number

BCP

Best Current Practice

BGP

Border Gateway Protocol

BYOD

Bring Your Own Device

ccTLD

country code Top-Level Domain

CDN

Content Distribution Network: a network of servers that improves the timeliness and availability of Internet content. (sometimes also called a “Content Delivery Network”)

CERT

Computer Emergency Readiness Team

CGN

Carrier Grade NAT (Network Address Translation)

CMS

Content Management System

CPE

Customer Provided Equipment

CSIRT

Computer Security Incident Response Team

DANE

DNS-based Authentication of Named Entities

DARPA

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

DDoS

Distributed Denial of Service

DDOS attack

Distributed Denial-of-Service attack

DHCP

Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol

DNS

Domain Name System

DNSSEC

Domain Name System Security Extensions

EU

European Union

FDI

Foreign Direct Investment

FTP

File Transfer Protocol

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

General Data Protection Regulation

gTLD

generic Top-Level Domain

HTML

HyperText Markup Language

HTTP

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

HTTPS

Secure version of Hypertext Transfer Protocol

IAB

Internet Architecture Board

IANA

Internet Assigned Numbers Authority

ICANN

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers

ICMP

Internet Control Message Protocol

ICT

Information and Communications Technology

IDN

Internationalized Domain Name

IDN

Internationalized Domain Name

IETF

Internet Engineering Task Force

IGF

Internet Governance Forum

IP

Internet Protocol

IPv4

Internet Protocol version 4

IPv6

Internet Protocol version 6

IPv6 is the latest version of the fundamental technology (Internet Protocol) that powers the Internet. The previous version, IPv4, is still operating on many networks worldwide. However, as each device connected to the Internet must have a unique identifier, it can only support an Internet of a few billion devices. By contrast, IPv6 can support an Internet of billions of billions of devices and can provide enough address space to meet the needs of the growing Internet for decades to come. Simply put, the Internet has outgrown its original design, and IPv6 is the solution to make sure it can keep expanding.

IRTF

Internet Research Task Force

ISP

Internet Service Provider

ITU

International Telecommunication Union

ITU-T

International Telecommunication Union-Telecommunication Standardization Sector

IXP

Internet Exchange Point

IXPs

Internet Exchange Points

KB

Kilobyte

KINDNS

Knowledge-sharing and Instantiation Norms for DNS and Naming Security

L2TP

Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol

LACNIC

Latin American and Caribbean Network Coordination Centre

LAN

Local Area Network

LIR

Local Internet Registry

LTE

Long Term Evolution is a project of the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to define the latest standard for mobile network technology.

MAC

Message Authentication Code

MANRS

Mutally Agreed Norms for Routing Security

MB

Megabyte

MPLS

Multiprotocol Label Switching

NAT

Network Address Translation

NOC

Network Operations Centre

NOG

Network Operators Group

NREN

National Research and Education Network

NSF

National Science Foundation

OECD

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

OTT

Over-the-top media services are offered directly to viewers via the Internet, bypassing cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms.

P2P

Peer-to-Peer

PKI

Public-Key Infrastructure

POP

Point Of Presence or Post Office Protocol

POP

Point of Presence

PPP

Purchasing Power Parity

QoS

Quality of Service

RDAP

Registration Data Access Protocol

RFC

Request For Comments

RFID

Radio-Frequency Identification

RFP

Request For Proposals

RIPE NCC

Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre

RIR

Regional Internet Registry

ROA

Route Origin Authorization

ROV

Route Origin Validation

RPKI

Resource Public Key Infrastructure

SAV

Source Address Validation

TCP

Transmission Control Protocol

TCP/IP

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol

TLD

Top-Level Domain

TLS

Transport Layer Security

UDP

User Datagram Protocol

UNDP

United Nations Development Programme

URL

Uniform Resource Locator

UTC

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the globally used standard for time. UTC and GMT are essentially the same.

VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol