I. INTRODUCTION
Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency was established, as per the law No 39/2001 of
13 September 200, as an independent national institution with the mandate to
regulate among other thing the telecommunication sector.
The law No 44/2001 of 30 September 2001 organizing telecommunications
together with the Presidential Decree n° 04/01 of 15/03/2004 determining specific
duties of the Regulatory Board in telecommunications matters empowers RURA to
manage the scarce resources including the Internet Resources.
Internet Resources refer to IP addresses, Autonomous System Numbers and DNS.
An Internet Protocol (IP) address is a numeric identifier that includes information
about how to reach a network location via the Internet routing system while an
Autonomous System (AS) is a group of IP networks that use a single and clearly
defined routing policy. Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) are globally unique
numbers used to identify these groups of networks.
IP addresses are not easy to remember. The Domain Name System (DNS)
provides names for numbered devices on the Internet. Internet applications use the
DNS to translate each name to an IP address. The IP address is how the device
moves information through the Internet and DNS allows people to use names
instead of remembering large numbers.
Management of Internet Resources is best done on a coordinated basis. Internet
numbers are a unique, limited resource. As technology evolves, changes may be
needed in the number allocation system. These changes should also be
coordinated.
Being coordinated at international, regional and country level, each country is
required to follow the same principle in doing so. It is in this spirit that Internet
Resources are allocated in a delegated, hierarchical manner to avoid
fragmentation. Internet Resources are finite and the technical requirements for their
use need careful management to ensure responsible consumption.
These guidelines provide for a consistent regulatory approach to critical
management issues regarding Internet Resources in Rwanda.
II. PURPOSES
The purposes of these regulations are to provide for general rules for the
management of Internet Resources and specific regulations for assignment of
domain name under .rw country code top level domain.
III. DEFINITIONS
To the sense of the present regulations, one hears by:
Country code top level domains means the uppermost domain in the hierarchy
of the global Internet domain name system according to 2-letter codes under the
ISO 3166-1 standard.
Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Agency
3