What Is The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority?

IANA Background

IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) is a non-profit International authority which “allocates and maintains unique codes and numbering systems that are used in the technical standards (“protocols”) that drive the Internet”. In 1989, the Federal Network Council (FNC) and the Internet Society (ISCO) assigned the control of TLDs to IANA.

From 1990 onwards, IANA started to assign unique values for Internet protocol addresses under the contract of the Government of United States, Department of Commerce (DOC). By late 1998, many functions of IANA were transferred to ICANN. Now, IANA is managed by ICANN.

IANA Today

Today the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority has 3 main areas of focus, including:

• managing the DNS root, the .int and .arpa domains;
• coordinating the global pool of IP and AS numbers, providing them to Regional Internet Registries; and,
• managing Internet protocols’ numbering systems in conjunction with standards bodies.

To learn more about IANA, visit the website here.