Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06VIENNA2054
2006-07-10 12:14:00
UNCLASSIFIED
Embassy Vienna
Cable title:  

Inviting Input Concerning the ICANN's

Tags:  ECON ECPS ETRD EINT ETTC AU 
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VZCZCXRO3992
PP RUEHAG RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLZ
DE RUEHVI #2054/01 1911214
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 101214Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY VIENNA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4185
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE
UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENNA 002054 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON ECPS ETRD EINT ETTC AU
SUBJECT: Inviting Input Concerning the ICANN's
Management of the Internet Domain Name and Addressing
System (DNS)

REF: (A) STATE 108105; (B) VIENNA 1685; (C) STATE 89981

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 VIENNA 002054

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECON ECPS ETRD EINT ETTC AU
SUBJECT: Inviting Input Concerning the ICANN's
Management of the Internet Domain Name and Addressing
System (DNS)

REF: (A) STATE 108105; (B) VIENNA 1685; (C) STATE 89981


1. Per ref A instructions, Post followed up with the
responsible government authorities and the private sector
"Internet Service Providers Austria" (ISPA) about their
preparedness to participate in the NTIA's public
consultation process.


2. Dr. Christian Singer, head of legal services in the
telecom and postal services directorate of the Federal
Ministry for Transportation, Innovation and Technology
told us that his ministry and the Federal Chancellery's
media office will refrain from sending a separate comment
on behalf of the GoA to the NTIA's public consultation
process. They will continue coordinating GoA views with
other EU member states within the High-Level Group on
Internet Governance (HLIG),where ICANN management was an
issue during last week's meeting.


3. ISPA sent its comment directly to the NTIA's e-mail
address at: dnstransition@ntia.doc.gov. For convenience,
we repeat ISPA's comment below:

Begin text.

To the
National Telecommunications and Information
Administration,
U.S. Department of Commerce
DNSTransition@ntia.doc.gov

Vienna, 7th of July 2006

Dear Madam,
Dear Sir,

We, the ISPA - Internet Service Providers Austria, the
association of ISPs in Austria and a key stakeholder of
the Local Internet Community were invited to comment on
ICANN's management over the Internet domain system and
addressing system, and are grateful for that opportunity.
We note that the registry for the at TLD is also member
of the ISPA and managing directors are represented on the
ISPA executive board.

nic.at GmbH, seated in Salzburg, Austria is the official
registry for .at domains, and therefore subject to
Austrian law. nic.at has been providing the registry
service under supervision of the Local Internet
Community as represented on its Domain Name Council since
1998 in an open and transparent way. The ISPA -
representative of ISPs and registrars - would like to
emphasize the fact that the entire LIC in Austria is very

satisfied with nic.at GmbH's performance.

Our views on your inquiry are as follows:

-- We support the concept of ICANN acting as the global
coordinator and enhancing stability of the Internet all
over the world.

-- We support private sector leadership and a bottom-up
approach to decision-making.

-- We consider national governments an important part of
the LIC, among other stakeholders.

-- We believe ICANN should concentrate on its core
mission (stability and coordination) and reduce policy
activities to a minimum. In particular, ICANN shall in
no way be involved in decisions better left to the local
community.

-- According to the WSIS declaration, no other country
or organisation shall decide on ccTLD policy. This
declaration shall also apply to ICANN.

-- The involvement of all stakeholders (including
governments) within the ICANN processes is important, and
be performed through appropriate bodies within the ICANN
context.

-- In our view, a contractual arrangement with ICANN and
ccTLD's is neither necessary nor desirable. We
understand nic.at GmbH is willing to provide a reasonable
contribution to ICANN's expenses, relating to the IANA
operating cost.

-- The IANA function should be streamlined and
automated, for instance by using the e-IANA software. We
underline that substantial progress has been made with
respect to IANA process backlog and organisational

VIENNA 00002054 002 OF 002


structure, and acknowledge the major contribution of
David Conrad and his team.

-- We do not understand why the DoC still has control
over, and approves of changes in the .at root zone
entries. We consider these an exclusively national
matter.

-- We welcome ICANN's IDN and internationalisation
efforts, but see a limited impact on registries like
nic.at. We do welcome the DNSsec initiative, and note
that a signed root zone would be a major step forward.

-- We believe additional gTLD's are of limited value -
the TLD business is highly competitive, there is no
scarcity in the DNS namespace, and we suggest to keep in
mind that many new gTLD efforts have turned out as flat-
out failures.

-- We consider ICANN a policy-making body for gTLDs, but
not for ccTLD's, as stated above.

-- We would particularly welcome Service Level
Agreements with IANA and understand nic.at GmbH would be
willing to contribute funds to achieve them.

-- We note that a detailed budget for IANA (cost and
expense) are lacking.


Overall, we support the ICANN concept. However, we
consider the out-of-scope policy making attempts and the
ballooning ICANN budget as issues to be addressed.

We are grateful for the opportunity to express our point
of view and remain
Yours truly

Dr. Kurt Einzinger
General Secretary
ISPA - Internet Service Providers Austria
Waehringerstrasse 3/18
1090 Wien, Austria
Tel.: +43 1 409 55 76
Mail: kurt.einzinger@ispa.at
web: http://www.ispa.at

End text.

MCCAW