The twentieth edition of the Middle East Network Operator Group Meeting and Peering Forum (MENOG), which was recently held as a virtual event, was held in the form of a 90-minute roundtable and broadcast live on the MENOG website.
During the meeting, panellists from across the region discussed the effects of COVID-19 on the Internet in the Middle East. The panel included Nermine El Saadany, regional vice president for the Middle East Internet Society; Abdul Rahman Al Marzouqi, Director of Cyber Security, Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of the United Arab Emirates; Marco Brandstaetter, regional director of DE-CIX and director of UAE-IX; Ahmed Ali, Vice President, Cyware Labs; Taha Hussain, Senior Product Solutions and Capacity Management at Batelco and moderated through Hisham Ibrahim, Director of External Relations at RIPE NCC.
Key themes of the occasion included the new ICT policy regulations, the management of unforeseen accumulation in Internet traffic and the acceptance of electronic facilities as a necessity.
Strengths:
Nermine El Saadany reported that Oman, among other Gulf countries, had lifted a ban on voice-over-IP programs such as Zoom or Google Meet. He also commented that Middle Eastern governments were working with social media corporations to succeed in younger programs. and fight the wrong information about COVID-19.
Abdul Rahman Al Marzouqi said the UAE has comfortable regulations on all vital electronic facilities such as online meetings and electronic medicine programs, and has worked with Internet stakeholders to facilitate greater Internet access across the country. .
Marco Brandstaetter commented that Frankfurt IX recorded a traffic inlet of 10% (8TB to 9TB) when COVID-19 hit Europe and the Middle East; however, he added that Internet exchange problems are designed for expansion and can solve sudden spikes. It also saw a sharp increase in traffic to the United Arab Emirates with 300 to 400 gigabits recorded in Dubai compared to one hundred gigabits last year.
Taha Hussain reported a 50% increase in emerging routes to Bahrain. He explained that his company had to deploy many fiber optic cables in residential spaces to meet the call and subsequently saw a change from cellular networks to constant networks during the quarantine period. .
Ahmed Ali said his company had noticed an increase in cybercriminal activities in the crisis region, ranging from undeniable phishing attacks to complex and organized cybercrime. He also noted that since the beginning of the pandemic, there has been increased collaboration between the public and personal sectors on the exchange of data on cyber threats.
Hisham Ibrahim said: “COVID 19 has highlighted some of the basic operational and regulatory disorders menog has been addressing for years in the region. While COVID 19 took the world by surprise, those who were most prepared to deal with them were the ones who had deployed maximum productive practices of collaboration and interconnectivity, through MENOG 20 we were able to reflect on the impact of COVID-19 on the Internet in the Middle East and better perceive how the various actors in the region have controlled the crisis. However, the paintings in the region are far from finished and at MENOG we are satisfied with the paintings with which they wish to prepare.
The assembly concluded with some recommendations: selling adaptive policy regulations, selling innovation, accelerating government digitization, developing greater Internet infrastructure, fostering collaboration, and harmonizing cybernetics in the region.
MENOG 20 live up to its reputation as an open opportunity for the entire technical network to receive percentage reports and lessons learned from sectors such as Internet service providers, cell phone operators, content providers, infrastructure and cloud service providers, as well as government regulators and business resolution managers Several industry organizations sponsored the meeting Equinix, DECIX, Facebook, Internet Society and THE RIPE NCC.
We are the regional Internet register for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia. As such, we assign and register blocks of numerical Internet resources to Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other organizations.
We are a non-profit organization that works with the RIPE (European IP Networks) network and the widest network on the Internet. NCC RIPE members basically consist of Internet service providers, telecommunications organizations and giant companies.
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