Request for some information from my NCUC colleagues

[Fouad Bajwa]

Dear Friends and Members of the NCUC,

I want to request you for some support and advice on an important
issue that prevails in my country and consumers (mostly non-commercial
users) of Pakistan's ccTLD http://www.pknic.net.pk. Your experienced
advice will help us intervene on this issue.

If you view this post at the Telecom Grid of Pakistan:
http://groups.google.com/group/telecom-grid-pakistan/browse_thread/thread/23aee2f85defd54b

The issues prevail to the mismanagement of PKNIC, the downtime it
witnessed in June 2008 of over seven days sending 28000 domain names
into trouble, over pricing where .Com's are available at $8-12 in
Pakistan, PKNIC charges Rs. 2500 or $25 for two years together.
Secondly, PKNIC's adopted Domain Name Dispute Resolution Centre
http://www.dndrc.com run by Zahid who is also an elected member of the
GNSO of ICANN to take independent decisions for PKNIC in domain
disputes.

Going through the above post on Telecom Grid, the consumers of PKNIC
are trying to find answers to why this whole process runs without the
people's or government's intervention and what are the consumer's
rights in this and if PKNIC can be decentralized as well as open up
the Dispute Resolution process so that more domain dispute opinions
are taken into account. Basically, having a multistakeholder driven
ccTLD registry and a more inclusive and open domain dispute resolution
process.

We are also trying to find out how PKNIC is regulated by ICANN. I've
come to know that Pakistan was given the ccTLD under private ownership
by IANA because we cannot find a link from ICANN to the PKNIC contract
so the contract isn't open either.

Can you all with your experience and links in ICANN help me to find
answers to these issues and help facilitate the limited but concerned
ccTLD users in Pakistan?

--

Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa
@skBajwa
Answering all your technology questions
http://www.askbajwa.com
http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa