[kictanet] IG Discussions- Day 4 of 10: Critical Internet Resources, IPv6, TLDs

[Michuki Mwangi]

IPV6:

When talking of IPv6 we are talking of the key word being ADOPTION and
not transition. The reason being that we shall still have IPv4 based
networks for at least another two decades if not longer.

As mentioned by one of the posts, the end-users are ignorant of what IP
version they use. A majority of whom have no clue what an IP address is.
Only operators, support staff are conscious of its role. Its equally
considerable that this status quo will remain as is for a long time.

That said, its likely that we need mechanism to ensure that what
consumers buy in terms of new devices, software upgrades will be IPv6
compliant for lack of better terms.

Case in point, when the west phases out old/legacy equipment its more
likely that this kit will likely find a way into some developing country
and deployed into a network for to start a second life.

All factors in mind - should this be left to the ignorant consumer  or
should someone up the chain be in a position to regulate what comes into
this market or not.

ccTLD Management;

Each country is entitled to develop its own Operational, Management and
Governance models as long as its consistent and acceptable to the Local
Internet community. The definition of the Local Internet Community (LIC)
is left to the country to determine who constitutes it. However in most
cases the stakeholders carry the day as the Local Internet community

As such, other countries in the region i.e Tanzania, South Africa and
Mauritius have reviewed their models to those they deem consistent to
the interests of their Local Internet communities. For such changes to
be implemented clear engagement of the community must be demonstrated to
ICANN and the IANA.

The KENIC experience was no different. Its however very interesting to
note that KENIC is listed under IANA as the management of .KE ccTLD
http://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/ke.html

It therefore means for this to change there must be consensus from the
LIC and a formal application for this to change.

To my understanding the KCA 2008 intends to license management of
subdomain registries. This is abit confusing to me and has been since i
first saw the statements.

Its not clear where there are going to split the registry and have other
operators manage .co.ke and .ac.ke and go.ke independently. If this is
the case, then i would like to invite them to review the South African
experience as to why they are moving away from a split registry to a
single registry and learn from their experience.

If its to license the registrar (ISP or others doing domain registration
on behalf of others - IMHO licensing has its pro's and cons and this may
not have a positive impact on the growth of the namespace.

If its to license every domain registrar (every domain owner) - this is
just absurd!

In conclusion, the management of the ccTLD determines its success.
Example .EG and .ZA were both entered in the Root-Zone in 1990. Today
the .ZA has over 500,000 domain while the .Eg is small at my last check
in 2006 they had 6,000 domains.

The KENIC model has managed to grow from 1,200 to 10,000 domains in a
span of 6 years (from Feb 2003 to Feb 2009). While this growth remains
disproportional to the population its relatively comparable to Internet
penetration.

Consequently changing the model may have its pro's and cons. My point of
 concerns are has anyone done any particular research/study to access
the impact of the proposed changes.

Essentially all changes to the ccTLD operations/management should aim to
make the name space efficiently available (ease of registration)
interesting (new second levels, auctions for hot names - creates
attention around the namespace) and certainly affordable.

Anything else will break the growth momentum the ccTLD has worked hard
to build. Taking into consideration that many other factors come into
play for there to be an interest in registrations at the ccTLD.

Regards,

Michuki.