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It's incredible that The EDGE NetValue2.0 (Feb 13, Pg 1&2) should allow its cover story to degrade with factual inaccuracies.

The writer says, and the editors agree to print, that ICANN is running one hundred and thirteen (113) root DNS servers across the world.

The actual number of root DNS servers are thirteen (13), labelled alphabetically from A to M (dot) root-servers (dot) net, and the hosting sites may shift geographically as circumstances change.

Root DNS servers are essential to the function of the Internet. There are so many protocols that use DNS, either directly or indirectly, making them potential points of failure for the entire Internet.

For this reason, there are 13 named root servers worldwide. There are not more root servers because a single DNS reply can only be 512 bytes long. While it is possible to fit 15 root servers in a datagram of this size, the variable size of DNS packets makes it prudent to only have 13 root servers.

However, since 2002, APNIC has taken an initiative to to establish a number of new root server sites into the Asia Pacific region. The sites are funded partially or fully by APNIC, but operated as "anycast" mirror copies of the existing 13 root DNS servers. For example, the one located in Kuala Lujmpur mirrors i.root-servers.net, which is located in Stockholm, Sweden.

Singapore's network is even more robust with three mirrors -- two are mirroring root servers I and J, while the third one mirrors root server F via APNIC.