The Middle East Network Operators Group (MENOG) held its first meeting from 3-5 April 2007, at the Diplomat Radisson SAS Hotel in Bahrain. It was the inaugural meeting for a very enthusiastic community of the middle east region.
MENOG 1 was modeled on the basis of NANOG (North American Network Operators Group) in North America, and SANOG (South Asian Network Operators Group) in the South Asian region and the idea was to offer network engineers and other technical staff the opportunity to share their experiences and knowledge, and identify areas for regional cooperation.
The meeting agenda was carefully crafted by the industry experts and people who were involved in other regional NOGs. The format of MENOG consisted of presentations, tutorials, and workshops to discuss implementation issues that required community cooperation. Topics of discussions included network expansion, broadband deployment and scaling wireless networks in the desert. The format of MENOG is still the same.
The RIPE NCC (Regional Internet Registry covering the Middle eastern region) came forward and supported the launch of this important regional forum, and made the commitment to providing organizational assistance to MENOG.
MENOG 1 proved to be a great milestone for the Middle Eastern Internet community. It was the very first collaborative effort to create a long-standing initiative to encourage dialogue on issues concerning the Internet industry in the Middle East.
It was the start of something extraordinary. Today, MENOG plays a very crucial role in bringing the community together for the progress and cooperation in the region. It has given the platform to various service providers, telcos, vendors etc to come together and listen to the community demand and requirements.
The landmark 10-year anniversary of MENOG will be celebrated during MENOG 17 in Muscat, Oman. Deploy360 team members Jan Zorz and Aftab Siddiqui, along with other prominent ISOC team members like Raul Echberria, Salam Yamout, Ilda Simao, Christine Saegesser, Konstantinos Komaitis and many ISOC Chapter leaders will be attending MENOG17 to celebrate a decade-long service to the community by MENOG.
Registration is open now, and presentations will be uploaded later.