Thank you for your response to
http://www.ish.com.au/solutions/domainProposal.html


on 21/12/01 3:10 PM, David Keegel at djk§cyber.com.au wrote:

> There would be a lot of resources required by the registrar (from what
> I can tell, it looks like you expect to have only ONE registrar) to
> support changes to DNS details and authentication issues.

Certainly my proposal is worded that way, but I wrote it a year ago when
multiple registrars were just a glimmer in auDA's eye. The proposal has two
main components:

* a free (costs included in business name registration) basic service
* various value added services

There is no reason why the second part couldn't be exposed to some form of
competition. I can't see how the first part can be competitive, except in
that auDA or the relevant body might tender out provision of services. It is
not necessary that one registrar perform the all functions for all
geographic areas.



> I expect
> there would need to be a large help desk to assist people who hardly
> know what the Internet is, to update their DNS records (or to deal
> with those who mucked up their DNS details).

Certainly. Although with careful planning, the amount of control able to be
exercised by the general public over their records would be confined to well
defined areas and choices.

There will still be a support cost, although some of that will be offset by
value added services.


> 
> Those sort of registrar functions do not seem like the sort of thing
> Government would consider to be within its core competencies, so I
> doubt Governments would be very interested in taking them on

Very possibly. That is the major problem with the proposal. Not only does it
have to pass the test of being a "good idea", but it will require funding
from revenue raised in business and company registrations.


> (especially if they are supposed to provide services for free).

Yes. It requires government funding of some sort. Either by rasing the cost
of business registrations or by siphoning off some small portion of the
current fee.

At $125 for a NSW business name registration (per 3 years), there has to be
quite a lot of revenue raised that isn't going to the cost of maintaining a
database and issuing certificates.


I guess I'd like to know what others think of the idea and whether it is
worth pursuing to a costing stage. I got a little feedback the first time I
proposed the idea, most of it positive.

Thanks for your thoughts David.


Cheers
Ari Maniatis


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