At 07:30 PM 4/1/98 +1000, Chris Chaundy wrote:
>At 20:11 1/4/98, Peter Gerrand wrote:
>>...
>
>What other domains are you referring to here?  I believe Hugh Irvine has
>indicated that net.au will be happy to participate once there is some
>general agreement over ADNA's policies.  Are there any other commercial
>SLDs in .au?

Chris

The commercial SLDs in .au are by definition those available for use by
Australian entities in the commercial sector (excluding educational bodies,
government bodies and CSIRO who have specialised SLDs reserved for them:
edu.au , gov.au and csiro.au). The commercial SLDs therefore logically
consist of:
(a) the current SLDs com.au, net.au, org.au, asn.au, conf.au and info.au; and
(b) proposed additional commercial SLDs such as pr.au.

This may seem to be radical stuff to some of you accustomed to the
'received wisdom' that only fee-charging SLDs are commercial, whereas
'free' SLDs are non-commercial - but that view simply doesn't stack up to
market reality. The commercial users of 'free' DNs want the same level of
service performance, for registration, delegation, redelegations and
help-desk support, that they get from a properly resourced, professional
DNA service - that usually charges fees to pay for those resources. 
In short, the definition of "commercial" should be decided by analysing the
demand side (end-user needs) and not just the supply side (current DNAs'
preferences). 

>>Finally, I also would welcome NOIE acting as a facilitator to bring the
>>currently alienated parties into the self-regulatory DNS process, whether
>>that is via ADNA or a new body more acceptable to all Australian
>>stake-holders in the Internet; such a body is needed to act as the
>>industry-created and government regulator-recognised Manager of Internet
>>Naming and Addressing in this country.
>
>Hold on - where did the addressing bit come from?  You are leaping way out
>of bounds here Peter...
>

I used the phrase 'Manager of Internet Naming and Addressing' to relate the
proposed ADNA+ industry self-regulatory body to the words "Manager of
Electronic Addressing" used in Sections 474-476 of the Telecommunications
Act 1997. This Act, together with the simultaneously amended Trade
Practices Act, effectively defines the regulatory environment in which the
Australian Internet now operates.

It is only a matter of time before the ACCC "declares" a suitable defined
Internet carriage access service, because of the public importance of
Internet services (and the fact that several industry bodies are already
lobbying the ACCC to declare such a service, to ensure fair access to major
carriers' backbone facilities). 

There are two obvious aspects to Internet Naming and Addressing:  the
Domain Name System and IP Addressing.
If the industry self-regulatory body decides that there are no issues to be
resolved with the processes in place for making IP Addresses available to
Australian entities, they can simply inform the regulators of that view. 

So while I may be 'leaping out of bounds' beyond the current ADNA charter,
I am working within the framework of the current regulatory environment.
Any major rethink of ADNA, as advocated by several on this mailing list,
should attempt to provide a closer alignment between ADNA+'s role and that
anticipated in the relevant legislation.

Cheers
Peter Gerrand
Melbourne IT