National Internet Exchange of India

National Internet Exchange of India

Subject: Science and Technology

Context:

National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) has floated a tender mandating that only Indian companies, registered on the Companies Act will qualify for the tender to manage the .IN registry.

Details:

• NIXI has floated a new tender, seeking a technical service provider who will partner with NIXI to manage the .IN registry.
  • The bidder should be registered as an Indian company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 (2013) or an LLP firm/ Partnership firm under Partnership Act 1932.
  • The bidder must be in existence for at least 7 years.
  • The bidder should have a minimum annual average turnover of ₹50 crore each and a positive net worth for the last three financial years  with at least 7 years of operations in India.
• In the past NIXI’s .IN registry was handled by American entities such as Afilias and GoDaddy.

Concept:

National Internet Exchange of India

• NIXI is a not-for-profit company registered under Section 25 of the Indian Companies Act, 1956 (now Section 8 under the Companies Act, 2013) with the primary objective of facilitating improved Internet services in the country.
• It was registered on 19 June 2003. 
• NIXI Chairman: Secretary, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology
• It aims to facilitate exchange of domestic internet traffic between the peering ISPs, Content players and any other organisations with their own Autonomous System number which enables more efficient use of international bandwidth, saving foreign exchange and also improves the Quality of Services (QoS) for internet users by avoiding multiple international hops and thus reducing latency.
  • An autonomous system (AS) is a collection of connected Internet Protocol (IP) routing prefixes under the control of one or more network operators on behalf of a single administrative entity or domain, that presents a common and clearly defined routing policy to the Internet.
  • Autonomous System Numbers are assigned to Local Internet Registries (LIRs) and end user organizations by their respective Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), which in turn receive blocks of ASNs for reassignment from the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA). Effective from December 27, 2021, bulk domain registrations, with individuals registering for more than 2 or an entity registering for more than 100 .in domains are required to seek prior approval from the CEO of National Internet Exchange of India.
• Under NIXI, the .IN registry functions as an autonomous body with primary responsibility for maintaining the .IN & .Bharat (IDN) country code top level domain and ensuring its operational stability, reliability, and security.It has helped in the proliferation of web hosting and the promotion of internet usage in the country.

National Internet Exchange of India (NIXI) Initiatives-The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) launched three pioneering initiatives for NIXI.

• IPv6 Expert Panel (IP Guru)-IP Guru extends support to the entities in India looking at migrating to the adoption of IPv6 but are facing technical challenges. It provides technical support and guidance to facilitate the adoption of IPv6.
• NIXI Academy-The academy has been established to help Indian citizens learn technologies like IPv6 that are mostly not included in the educational curriculums. It encourages both technical/non-technical people in India to take up the learning of such technologies.
• NIXI-IP-INDEX-IPv6 index portal has been developed by NIXI for the internet community. It gives information on IPv6 adoption rate in the country as well as around the world. It facilitates comparison of progress made by India in adoption of IPv6 in comparison to other countries.
• Since December 2012, NIXI also manages the National Internet Registry of the country delegation Internet Protocol addresses (IPv4 and IPv6) and Autonomous System numbers to its Affiliates.