[kictanet] Africa TLD registries discuss take-up of domains

[McTim]

Robert,

On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 8:47 AM, robert yawe <robertyawe at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Thanks for the heads up on this, I have been attending the sessions at the
> ICANN conference and it has been very informative it is unfortunate that
> very few Kenyan's are attending or even have an idea of what is ready being
> hatched.


This is not a Kenya specific problem, it's global.  The "bottom" of
the bottom up process is very narrow worldwide.

>
> During the diner yesterday I sat next to a staff member of Afilias who are
> one of the largest registry operators in the US and the information I got
> from him has been an eye opener especially on issues of registrars and
> registry as relates to TLD.
>
> It seems that the problem with African countries is our dependence on
> donations and handouts, the registry business is a huge money maker once you
> put aside the techie staff.  In this light I think it is time that we got
> KENIC a competitor or two maybe even 10 by doing this we shall bring order,
> ambition and drive into the TLD business in the region.


The Domain name business is a multiBillion dollar industry. However,
the ccTLD market is only a very small part of that.

  Afilias runs the
> .org and also the .mobi and they went out to chase for the business they did
> not just sit back and wait for it to be donated.

To clarify, PIR runs .org, and Dotmobi runs .mobi.  What Afilias does
is provide back end registry services for these and other regisries.


>
> From the link Mureithi provided it is clear that Kenya has a slight
> advantage over other countries in the region which, we need to move this
> advantage to the next level by offering to become the registry for .ug, .ea,
> .cd, .rw and also the TLD for .afri.  By providing the services to our less
> advanced neighbours we shall easily achieve critical mass of users thens we
> can role out registrars around the region.


I doubt that .ug, et. al. would outsource its back end to KENIC, they
might, but I doubt it.

As for .africa, most likely that would be outsourced to someone like
Afilias.  There is a long standing discussion on who would act as the
registry for .africa.  My preference is for it to be done by the
African Internet technical community on the .org model.

>
> Lets work towards lighting a fire under KENIC as we work towards EACoNIC,

Why would we want such a body? What role would they play? What is the
problem that such a NIC would solve?

-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel