That’s the question that has been reverberating around one of the mailing lists that covers Internet issues. It’s an important question, and once in which we hope our community have some answers – or, at least, some pointers.
What does it take to run a Top Level Domain Registry? And what’s more easy to run: a ccTLD or gTLD?
Opinions so far have ranged from “it’s easy” to “it’s a serious business” – both of which are obviously far too vague to being to measure what is an intriguing question. Some suggestions fall down in favour of the easy option: “only 5 ccTLDs show 24 x 7 support”, “registries are not difficult to run”. Others say, “it requires great technical skills, and business approach”. They maintain that the while technically and even theoretically it is easy to run a top-level domain, the realities mean providing and/or selling domains, advanced review systems, legal considerations and so on.
It would be good to hear what the registries and businesses think – is it really that difficult to run a TLD? Is it easy to decide what kind of machines to get, how to backup, what power supply you’ll need, Internet connectivity, UPS, 24×7 staff, backup of the power supply, backup of the Internet connection. Do you need staff, payments, social security, registration of a company, accounting, etc., or you think one could run the TLD from their garage? Are there differences between running a ccTLD, and a gTLD?
Let’s hear what you have to say.
{ 8 comments }
Patrick Jones 02.12.07 at 10:39 am
Thank you posting this Veni. Your post is timely because one of ICANN’s projects for 2006-07 is to study registry failover. Your post raises issues I am looking into as part of this project. I’d like to know more about the critical functions of a registry. I hope some useful comments come in.
Kieren McCarthy 02.13.07 at 1:10 am
Karl Auerbach has responded to this – for some reason on his own blog rather than here.
I will ask him if he minds having his post added here, but in the meantime, here is a link to it: http://www.cavebear.com/cbblog-archives/000298.html
Kieren
Patrick Jones 02.13.07 at 8:24 am
Kieren, thanks for linking Karl’s post. We really are taking an objective look at those functions that are critical for operation of a registry. Like Veni, I’d love to hear what people have to say on this topic.
Patrick Vande Walle 02.15.07 at 11:20 pm
Veni, it really depends what you intend to do with the TLD. Say you want to run a small, not-for-profit registry, limited to a community.
Technically, it is quite simple a
Patrick Vande Walle 02.15.07 at 11:30 pm
Veni, it really depends what you intend to do with the TLD. Say you want to run a small, not-for-profit registry, limited to a small community.
Technically, it is quite simple and does not require a lot of resources, both financial and technical.
Under the current ICANN model however, this is not possible, since the application fees are too high and effectively prevent those who want to run a small not-for-profit TLD to apply.
Kieren McCarthy 02.16.07 at 12:56 am
Karl Auerbach emailed me back saying he was happy to have his post repeated here (Creative Commons licence), so here it is:
————————————————————————-
ICANN has instituted a house blog – a house organ – sort of like Pravda during the era of the Soviet Union.
So ICANN is asking “What does it take to run a TLD registry?”
That’s a disingenuous question.
Is it asking “What does it take to run a TLD registry?” under ICANN’s amazingly complex and intrusive system of business and price regulation?
Or is it asking “What does it take to run a TLD registry?” in a marketplace that is free of intrusive regulations established, via ICANN, by incumbent competetors and outside interests who do not want innovation or expansion of the internet’s domain name system?
It turns out that to run a TLD registry under the latter conditions is pretty easy. It is relatively easy to establish, or hire, a worldwide array of name servers. And it is not that hard to build a registration system that serves the expected customer base.
What is hard is being forced to build out an array of servers and registration infrastructure that has to serve a customer base the size of .com under the business rules established by ICANN.
Take for example my own TLD, .ewe. I anticipate that it will provide domain name services for far less money than is possible under ICANN’s rules. And it will offer a broader range of services.
But I can not go into business with .ewe, at least not realistically. That’s because ICANN holds the keys to the only viable marketplace. And unless I abandon my business plan and do it the way that ICANN demands I have no chance of getting ICANN’s approval. It would be a waste of money even to apply and ask.
So in answer to the question from ICANN’s house organ – “What does it take to run a TLD registry?” The answer is obvious: ICANN should step aside, let innovators innovate – a few will succeed, some will fail – and we will find out what it takes to run a TLD registry.”
Vittorio Bertola 02.22.07 at 5:50 am
I was one of the people raising the point about low-cost, non-profit TLDs. Actually, the ALAC has been making this point for the last four years…
On this point, I agree with Karl: I don’t see why his .ewe should not have a chance to go into the root through an examination process that does not require 250′000$ of costs per application. Or why something like eu.org (see http://www.eu.org) shouldn’t be doable as a TLD. It would just increase the offer to consumers.
Jeff Hogston 05.03.07 at 3:39 pm
Running a TLD *is* relatively easy, but the key word ‘relatively’. Of course, as demand for a TLD grows, maintaining that database will give you more chances to make mistakes, but the traffic (requests) is what will make or break you. If people can’t resolve…oh, lets say, a .org. domain….nothing else matters.
Now that it’s been mentioned, I wonder how long UltraDNS (now a NeuStar arm) will be allowed to continue with their “relatively” poor performance history. (You only have to look at the DNSMon charts provided by RIPE)
Comments on this entry are closed.