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

[J-F C. (Jefsey) Morfin]

Dear Hendrik,
and why not to only to respect the 5th route, the one we will follow 
anyway. To get real.

The four routes you quotes necessarily call on a central authority at some 
stage. The problem is not with the route, the problem is with the 
authority. The route is not that anyone decides for others through a 
dominance, but that everyone reasonably decides for himself, through a 
concertance. And this may lead to as many model, rates, solutions, laws as 
there is in real life.

When you are in a street and you see kids misbehaving. You can try to use 
your seniority's authority to order them to stop. But you are at risk that 
one outwits you or that one calls on a more senior's authority to 
contradict you. Or you can stop by them, start talking, make them 
understand and help them concerting about how they could do better.

That is the difference between losing in directing and wining in leading.

USG is obviously uncertain about the proper way - this reflects in 1996 
Acts and ... in your own evaluation. It is interesting that you quote the 
telecommunications and regulations about "information" basic management 
issues. This is the core of the problem. Data Relations (until then 
"enhanced services") have been twisted into "information" in 1996. The move 
was smart. Regulation protection did not help the USA to be the leader in 
packet switch telecommunications services. The bet was that removing 
regulations protection from the foreign packet switch services would help 
the US industry gaining that leadership. This was an interesting and bold 
move that ICANN was to lead.

That mission partly failed. Not because of Joe Sims who has been 
Machiavellian about it (his "CIANN" part was a success). It is globally 
failing because the Internet technology does not delivers and the main 
interest is not the network development but the protection of US and 
IP/copyrights interests. It is significant that when you talk of "Internet 
interests", no one today understand. The Internet has not been identified 
yet as a common property, it is still an area to control. Dominance not 
concertance.

Instead of leading the world with novelty and innovation, this US attempt 
at dominance is freezing the world into old systems and concepts, hence 
into status quo. Not that much for the money some may make (less and less 
in proportion) but out of lack of idea, momentum, project, vision. We 
dispute details not of targets.

If we do not collectively correct that (has to be collective because we 
talk about a network)  we will be more and more in the situation where 
ICANN will call on contracts (they did not get) and on their 
dominant  position (dwindling) to direct rather than to lead.

Two years ago, ICANN was able to afford @large Directors. Now the obviously 
cannot survive them anymore.

The only positive way-out is a global concerted review of the network 
architecture, of the societal demand for now and the 20 years to come.

IMHO if we do it we will soon discover that the same way we need IPv6 and 
an ad-hoc IP addresses distribution, we need DNS.2 (I am surprised Jim only 
supports IPv8 when he should support "IPv10" - is IPv6 not older that the 
web?). We will see that we need extended DNS+ services. We will see that we 
need a reasonable concertance about Internet names and URL support, 
respecting the authority of the Govs, innovation through entrepreneurs and 
common ways of life though ITU and nomenclatures. That we need to protect 
telecommunications from 1996 Acts: they partly helped developing the 
Internet, yet endangering the infrastructural aspects but nearly killing 
telecommunications in the USA and in the going to kill them in developing 
countries. We went a bridge to far.

This is probably easily possible through the "advanced services" 
possibility. If we have no concertance between ITU, Govs, FCC, etc. we will 
run into a total collapse of the data relations system and to very drastic 
survival changes. IMHO we are in 1788. Up to us to decide/

There is a lack of money at the proper place and money wasted at wrong 
places. Please consider that $ 6 is a lot of money for an Internet name. 
But is no money for the cost of the Internet. I have rule "you do not sell 
a network to those who use it, but to the one who needs it to be used". We 
do not sell the Internet to the proper customers, neither the 
telecommunications.

WorldCom, ICANN, etc.. are testimonies that the Computer Inquiry/1996 line 
of thinking is not appropriate. IMHO the reason why is that e-relations are 
just about any other relations: linking people. And you are better off in 
having the linked people to agree together, considering being equal and not 
tied into tools they are not pleased with. 1/3 of the French people never 
used the Internet, 2/3 do not see what it could bring to them, 4/5 of them 
use the Minitel.

What ICANN needs is not technical nor legal consultants, it is matrimony 
consultant. Winning a divorce has never made a good wedding.

jfc


On 20:58 29/08/02, Hendrik Rood said:

>At 07:21 29/08/02 -0700, todd glassey wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>Again we combine here in a rash all kind of issues that is far and away 
>from the original question: wholesale prices for domain names.
>There are four main routes to handle such an issue:
>1. Setup a price regulating system via cost studies.
>2. Introduce a price regulating system by benchmarks of registry wholesale 
>prices and force Verisign to charge the second or third cheapest rate.
>3. Expand the number of new gTLD registries, hoping that a decline in 
>market share of the ".com/.net" registry forces Verisign to lower prices 
>as it seduce its Registrars into more promotional effort (they get better 
>margins initially).
>4. Split the former monopoly registry further e.g. speed up the rebidding 
>for ".net" and the rebidding for ".com".
>
>Fact is: the US government and ICANN chose route 4 by aggreeing with 
>Verisign/NSI on the 2002 ".org" rebid, 2005 ".net" rebid and 2008 ".com rebid.
> From an operations management position this phasing is the one that makes 
> sound as you take the large registry with the lowest risk for stability 
> of the Internet first. About timelines in this agreement you can of 
> course be of the opinion that faster than glacial speed is highly recommended.
>
>To give you an idea on the 3 other routes:
>1. Is standard practive for most Public Utility Commissions in the USA and 
>National Regulatory Authorities in the EU when they are attempting to 
>determine the correct "wholesale" prices for interconnection charges. 
>Highly unrecommendable as it is a dramatic stimulus for more bills from 
>telecommunications consultants, economists and lawyers and a cesspool of 
>legal infighting, footdragging and process obstruction via technicalities 
>without substantive results.
>2. Is deployed by the Danish regulator Telestyrelsen when they decided to 
>avoid a million dollar Long Run Incremental Cost study, by assessing that 
>Denmark, due to its geographic and demografic structure has to be one of 
>the three lowest countries in interconnection charges of the EU benchmark. 
>If a rough consensus is reached on regulating registry wholesale prices, 
>this is the one I would recommend as it is quite lightweight, while a 
>substantive number of gTLD registries and some ccTLD registries with 
>multi-country operations are available as a benchmark.
>3. Milton's proposal: it is the indirect route via economic market forces. 
>It is easily instituted with one rule with respect to a registry "price 
>discrimination between names (I mean on content) is not allowed for a 
>registry". With this rule every registry has a strong incentive to expand 
>under its TLD into the highest number of names paid (e.g. its maximising 
>limit is avoiding the risk of non-paying or bankrupt 
>registrars/registrants to rise above marginal domain name registration costs).
>4. ICANN's and DoC's current route: This may quite well held up in court 
>as it is clear that Verisign's registry contracts do have an end, but also 
>due to the fact that courts have often applied the "break-up" tool to 
>redress a monopoly.
>
>
>ir. Hendrik Rood
>Senior Consultant
>Stratix Consulting Group BV
>tel: +31 20 44 66 555
>fax: +31 20 44 66 560
>e-mail: Hendrik.Rood at stratix.nl
>
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