The risk of the internet fragmenting into national "splinternets" will likely be averted in a UN vote next month, the head of the authority that manages web addresses told AFP on Tuesday.

"The vast majority of the countries that we have met with, including countries who in the past have been very sceptical... believe the current model of governing the internet has worked," Kurtis Lindqvist, head of ICANN, said at the Web Summit tech gathering in Lisbon.

Officials from UN member countries are to meet December 15-16 to review the rules that have applied to internet over the past two decades.

Some proposals circulating call for control of managing internet addresses being taken away from the US-based non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that Lindqvist runs

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