[ncdnhc-discuss] Names Council agenda item request: discussionof wholesale price for names

[todd glassey]

Kent - you and likely many others missed the point totally. DNS and BIND are
only part of what Registrars do and the overhead of having to "add other
tasks" to the registrars totally changes the costing models of operating a
Registrar as a business.

What really blows my mind is that so few people technical people have any
idea what running a business costs. And as to the overhead of running the
actual DNS services, these are provided by the Registry itself which for all
intents and purposes is where the DNS Management overhead is really felt.

More inline below.

----- Original Message -----
From: <kent at songbird.com>
To: <discuss at icann-ncc.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2002 11:39 PM
Subject: Re: [ncdnhc-discuss] Names Council agenda item request:
discussionof wholesale price for names


> On Wed, Aug 28, 2002 at 09:32:04PM -0700, Dave Crocker wrote:
> > At 11:26 PM 8/28/2002 -0400, Milton Mueller wrote:
> > >Until we add more than 500 TLDs a year there is
> > >no issue with BIND and DNS. None.
> >
> > BIND, no.  DNS root access? Maybe no, maybe yes.  The effect of traffic
> > patterns on root access is a matter of continuing debate among the DNS
> > technical community, as recently as the past few weeks.
>
> Yes, that has been a most interesting discussion.  It has reinforced my
> belief that no one -- absolutely no one -- really understands the
> behavior of DNS in the large.  One thing seems fairly clear -- the root
> zone really is different than a TLD zone.

yes Root Zones are collections of MASTER RESOLUTION SERVERS that represent
the .ARPA namespace. But the point is that by enabling more ROOT ZONES we
get more Domains, without needing more TLD's...

>
> In any case, it's moot: the issue isn't what the software will support;
> the issue is the far more complex matter of the procedures of the
> registry/registrar.  Verisign and most other registrars, for example,
> have largely automated procedures, and those procedures are not perfect

Yes but these are the systems that create and manage orders to the Registry.
So their failing to allow Verisign to manage its services says that they
cannot manage their User Base with traditional tools.

> -- there are many horror stories about lost domains, customer service
> screwups, and the like.

So here you point out that the operations processes have holes that the
Registrars are now having to address? Isnt this what I said initially?

> The idea that the root zone should be run under
> a similar model is entertaining, but it is simply never going to happen,
> regardless of the most fervent libertarian fantasies.

Why??? becuase the IETF said so ??? Get a clue patner China and others are
now, and have been, operating separate roots. All it will take is a lawsuit
by one of these other registries/registrars against ICANN itself for
operating and perpetuating the monopoly.  I cant see any US Federal Court
upholding ICANN's operating the sole global root, as it is clearly a
restraint of trade.

>
> This has nothing to do with ICANN, per se -- any agency with serious
> pretentions of management of the root zone would inevitably be drawn
> into the same position.

It is excactly to do with ICANN since ICANN has sold rights essentially to
its registrars and registries to operate a public service based naming
facility.

Todd