The Full IANA Transition Proposal

https://www.ietf.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/chairs.jpgThere is still plenty of miles ahead on the road to completing transition. But today represents a major milestone. And a significant effort, run entirely by the multistakeholder community. This is how the Internet governance matters should be handled – in collaboration with all the relevant parties, and with full understanding of both technical and policy aspects.At the IETF, we started our transition planning effort in August 2014, when the IANAPLAN working group was proposed. It quickly developed a proposal, based on continuation of the existing arrangements between IETF and ICANN. Those arrangements had of course evolved over the last decade and more. As a result, we had quite a bit of running code and faith in the arrangements.

The IETF part of the proposal was approved in January 2015. The ICG has now put all three parts together, from the IETF, the Regional Internet Registries, and ICANN. The combined proposal also includes an evaluation that the different parts work well together and match the expectations set forth for the transition.

The ICG is a group of 30 people from 13 communities, focused on coordinating the effort while letting the operational communities such as the IETF develop the arrangements that suit them best. The ICG is chaired by IETF’s Alissa Cooper, with Patrik Fältström and Mohamed El Bashir as co-chairs.

It is important to pay attention to the combined proposal and the public comment period. Quoting Eliot Lear (one of the editors of the IETF part): “I want to encourage all my techie friends to take a few minutes and support the IANA transition proposal by going to the web site below and commenting. This represents 15 months of hard work of many people, and the stability and growth of the Internet are best served with your help.”

If you have any comments, now is the time to make them. The public comment period ends on September 8, 2015. If you are not familiar with all aspects of the proposal, the ICG is holding webinars next week to provide an overview. Everyone is welcome to join these webinars.

Here are the links:

• The combined proposal: IANA Stewardship Transition Proposal (PDF).

• The press release from the ICG: ICG Seeking Public Input on Key Internet Governance Proposal (PDF).

• Public comment web site: IANACG.ORG.

• Webinar details: ICG webinars.

• Webinars about a separate effort on ICANN accountability enhancements: CCWG webinars.

Once the public comment period is over, the ICG will again assess the proposal and the comments, and eventually send it to the National Telecommunications & Information Administration (NTIA) in the US government. In parallel, a set of accountability enhancements necessary for the ICANN part of the transition are progressing at ICANN. And finally, an implementation phase begins where the transition is actually put into action. This phase will be bigger in the other communities, but for us at the IETF it is quite straightforward, given the existing agreements already in place. Our transition consists of a few enhancements to those agreements.

(For the record, I am also a member of the ICG, but not speaking for the ICG any way in this article)

Credits: Alain Durand for the photo and ICG and XPLANE for the graphics.