"We are very happy to receive this special consultative status," said Axel Pawlik, Managing Director, RIPE NCC. "The RIPE NCC has been widely recognised for its contributions throughout the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and the ongoing Internet Governance Forum (IGF). This latest development is a further recognition of the RIPE NCC and highlights the importance of industry self-regulation in the management of critical Internet resources."
Nominated by UK Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA) for an Internet Hero award in 2005, the RIPE NCC actively supports and represents the interests of its 5,000 members and the RIPE community.
"The new consultative status from the United Nations strengthens the RIPE NCC's efforts to represent its members and the RIPE community," said Paul Rendek, Head of External Relations and Communications, RIPE NCC. "But it also provides key decision makers with the benefits of the RIPE NCC's experience, allowing them to make well-informed decisions that promote the continued stability of the Internet."
Founded in 1992, the RIPE NCC is an independent, not-for-profit membership organisation that supports the infrastructure of the Internet. The most prominent activity of the RIPE NCC is to act as a Regional Internet Registry (RIR) providing global Internet resources and related services to a current membership base of around 5,500 members in over 70 countries. These members consist mainly of Internet Service Providers (ISPs), telecommunication organisations and large corporations located in Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia.
As one of the world's five RIRs, the RIPE NCC performs a range of critical functions including:
The RIPE NCC also provides a range of technical and coordination services for the Internet community. These services include the operation of K-root (one of the 13 root name servers), the Deployment of Internet Security Infrastructure (DISI) and DNS Monitoring (DNSMON).
As a result of its established position in the Internet industry, the RIPE NCC has played an important role in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), European Union (EU) workshops and government briefings on key issues in the current Internet landscape.
Please contact either Blaise Hammond or Lucie Smith at Racepoint Group UK
Tel: +44 (0) 208 752 3200
Email:
]]>The Number Resource Organization (NRO) is satisfied with the result of the WSIS. It is a positive result that the role of governments inside the area of Internet governance has been clearly defined,and that there is a clear decision for governments not to become involved in the daily operational and technical matters of the Internet.This result,while recognising the importance of full involvement of all stakeholders, allows for the continued successful operation of the Internet and is a successful outcome for the Internet community as a whole.
The full NRO statement is available on the NRO website at:
http://www.nro.net/news/number-resource-organization-statement-on-wsis-phase-ii-tunis
Organisations at the ‘Internet Pavilion’ will include the Internet Society (ISOC), the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Number Resource Organization (NRO), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the London Internet Exchange (LINX), the Council of European National Top level Domain Registries (CENTR) and the African ISP Association (AfrISPA).
The pavilion theme is ‘The Internet - How does it work, Who makes it work’. It will offer WSIS attendees a clear understanding of the issues involved in the successful coordination of the Internet’s technical infrastructure, including the importance of building on the proven success of the inclusive and established processes that have fostered its incredible growth.
“Coordination and collaboration between the many organisations that play a role in Internet administration and development is vital,” commented Axel Pawlik, NRO Chairman. “The industry partners hosting the ‘Internet Pavilion’ at WSIS will show how cooperation is fundamental to the stability of the Internet.”
The ‘Internet Pavilion’ will demonstrate how participating organisations represent the evolving needs of the global Internet community through an open, neutral, bottom-up, collaborative and inclusive multi-stakeholder framework. The specific roles of each organisation in Internet administration and coordination will be highlighted.
“This is a crucial time for all those with an interest in the future of the Internet,” explained Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society (ISOC). “We encourage direct participation of any interested party in reinforcing the success of the existing mechanisms that have been built and driven by the Internet community.”
With regard to the results of the WSIS process, Ms. St. Amour asks that governments and other stakeholders remind themselves that decisions should be taken with the interests of Internet users in mind. “At the end of the day, the WSIS should protect the openness of the Internet and promote ways of facilitating access for those who wish to benefit from this incredibly valuable medium,” said Ms. St. Amour.
Organisations at the ‘Internet Pavilion’ at WSIS are:
Internet Society (ISOC)
http://www.isoc.org
The Internet Society (ISOC) is a not-for-profit membership organisation providing leadership in Internet related standards, education, and policy. For over 13 years ISOC has run international network training programs for developing countries and these have played a vital role in setting up the Internet connections and networks in virtually every country connecting to the Internet during this time.
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
http://www.ietf.org
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) has provided leadership in the development of Internet standards for nearly 20 years. The IETF is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet. It is open to any interested individual.
Number Resource Organization (NRO)
http://www.nro.net
Formed by the Regional Internet Registries to formalise their cooperative efforts, the Number Resource Organization exists to protect the unallocated Number Resource pool. It also promotes and protects the bottom-up policy development process, and acts as a focal point for Internet community input into the RIR system.
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
http://www.icann.org
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is an internationally organized,non-profit corporation that has responsibility for Internet Protocol (IP) address space allocation, protocol identifier assignment, generic (gTLD) and country code (ccTLD) Top-Level Domain name system management, and root server system management functions.
London Internet Exchange (LINX)
http://www.linx.org
LINX is a mutual, not-for-profit organisation, which connects the networks of Content Delivery and Internet Service Providers so that traffic may flow more efficiently between them.
Council of European National Top level domain Registries (CENTR)
The Council of European National Top-Level-Domain Registries, CENTR, is an association of Internet Country Code Top Level Domain Name (TLD) registries (such as .uk for United Kingdom, .it for Italy, .es for Spain). CENTR has a European focus, but no geographical restrictions to membership which includes a number of non-European registries, including some emerging countries. CENTR membership is responsible for 95% of all domain names currently registered worldwide.
African ISP Association (AfrISPA)
http://www.afrispa.org
AfrISPA is a continental Association of African Internet Service Provider Associations whose primary objective is to provide industry perspective on policy formulation and regulation as it relates to the Internet industry and to act as an interface with Governmental bodies and the public at large.
General information about the ‘ICT 4 all’ exhibition is available here: http://www.expo.ict4all-tunis.org
]]>
Name of the paper: Cluster one B3 Assessment Report
We appreciate the efforts that have been put into the production of this draft document. It is reassuring to see the draft documents are improving in quality and in accuracy, and we commend the authors for their continued efforts.
While this draft document represents clear progress towards comprehensive coverage of IP address administration, we feel it is important to correct details that are still not accurate. We are particularly concerned to see that there are still areas that might be misinterpreted, particularly regarding the description of the IP address Policy Development Process used to formulate address allocation rules. We would like the WGIG to note that this Policy Development Process is open to any and all interested parties, including governments, civil society and the private sector.
In the interest of full transparency and clarity, we will comment on particular sections of the draft working paper below. For ease of reference we will quote the relevant text from the paper in full before giving our reaction to it.
Paragraph 1
“The IP Address System is part of the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. Each Domain Name needs an IP number. IP numbers are allocated, on documented requests, in form of address blocks from IANA to the RIRs and from the RIRs to the ISPs or other units, which register domain names.”
The references to domain names here are misleading since IP addresses have a much more fundamental purpose. We suggest the following replacement text:
“The IP Address System is part of the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. Every device connected to the Internet needs an IP address (IP number), and network providers normally require many addresses in order to establish Internet-connected services. IP addresses are allocated in blocks, in response to documented requests, from the IANA to RIRs, and from RIRs to ISPs.
IP addresses are fundamentally different from Domain Names in the functions that they fulfil, their essential characteristics, and the ways in which they are distributed and managed. The DNS provides a lookup service for IP addresses, allowing Internet users to identify sites and services according to (supposedly) memorable names rather than their numeric IP addresses. The DNS is also dynamic, allowing the IP address associated with a name to be changed invisibly to the user, a feature which allows a degree of portability of Internet services. The DNS is, as its name implies, a service which operates on the Internet - and without it the Internet could still operate (though with considerable inconvenience to its users); IP addresses are fundamental to the Internet itself.”
Paragraph 2
“The IPv4 address space has a capacity of about 4 billion addresses. There are different interpretations about the unused IPv4 space. While some groups argue, that the Internet community is running out of new IPv4 addresses, there is evidence that only half of the IPv4 addresses are used at the moment. A substantial number of IPv4 address blocks are allocated to individual organizations but are not used.”
This paragraph implies that basic details regarding IP address utilisation are the subject of legitimate debate. On the contrary, accurate and objective data is available to describe many aspects of the IP address management system, including: the amount of unallocated IPv4 address space held by the IANA (currently 29% of the total IPv4 address space); the amount of IPv4 address space actually used on the Internet (32.15% of the total IPv4 address space); and the rate of allocation of IPv4 address space (2.5% of total IPv4 address space was allocated in 2004). From this factual data, many reliable conclusions can be drawn; it is objectively clear for instance that we are not in immediate danger of running out of IPv4 address space.
The WGIG should recognise that some arguments that have been brought to bear in current debates in Internet Governance have less merit than others, and that some are simply incorrect. In order to reach truly valuable conclusions, we hope that the WGIG, as an expert group, will produce reports which are as precise and as factually accurate as possible.
Paragraph 3
“In the middle of the 1990s, a more extended Internet Address Protocol (IPv6) was developed which creates de facto an unlimited address space. Transition from IPv4 to IPv6 has started already before 2000 but has moved forward slowly.”
While it is true that IPv6 offers vastly more address space than IPv4, this space is not unlimited and there remain similarities in the way this space needs to be managed. There will continue to be a need for:
“ICCAN/IANA allocates blocks of IP address space to the RIRs. Policies for the allocation of IP addresses are developed under the regional Policy Development Process in the Public Forums of the Regional Internet Registries. These policies have been developed bottom up and are specifically designed to meet the needs of the regional Internet community. Each RIRs Public Forum is sovereign in its policy development process. The RIRs are membership-based organizations. Members are mainly Internet Services Providers (ISPs), telecommunication organizations and large corporations. RIPE NCC has for instance more than 3800 members.”
It is important to point out that the IP address Policy Development Process described above is open, transparent and inclusive. It includes the active participation of both public and private sector bodies as well as civil society. The formal Policy Development Process, along with publicly available and archived, open mailing lists, enable Internet address management policies to take into account the broad perspectives of all relevant stakeholders. The role of the RIRs is to facilitate these processes, help their communities build consensus-based policies and then to ensure that these policies are applied fairly and consistently. Also, while RIRs are fundamentally autonomous, close cooperation is undertaken among all RIRs to maintain the consistency of policies developed, and ensure that any divergence is consistent with the technical and operational requirements of a stable Internet infrastructure.
It is important to recognise that these IP address policies are formed and approved by the Internet community at large, not by RIRs themselves or by RIR staff. This community includes governments, civil society and RIR members and non-members. The executive boards of the RIRs, while directly elected by the RIR memberships, also do not form or approve IP address policies.
“The general process of the management of IP addresses is rather transparent and democratic. IP addresses are allocated on the basis of requests for documented needs to members of the RIRs. There are no limitations on membership of RIRs.
There is no formal involvement of governments and civil society in the RIR structures. Governments have used the channel of the Governmental Advisory Committee to comment on IP address policies and in particular to the transfer to the IPv6 address space and the establishment of new Regional Internet Registries, in particular for Africa. However, they have no decision-making authority in the establishment of policy.”
“The management of IP addresses is primarily in the hands of the private sector, that is ICANN/IANA and the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). The RIRs have demonstrated their capability to fulfill their tasks and to make their contribution to the functioning of the Internet. They have been able to manage the transfer of functions from ARIN to LACNIC and from ARIN, RIPE NCC and APNIC to AFRINIC in a way which did not only not interrupt Internet services and connectivity for end users but also developed broader opportunities for the regional Internet community in regions served by the new RIRs. IP numbers are considered a valuable international resource shared by all users in all nations. Although it can be said that the current management system and distribution of responsibilities for number allocation has worked so far, the rapid increase of demand and utilization of the internet requires a review of the current numbering management approach to ensure equitable distribution of resources and access for all.
As said above, there is no involvement of governments and civil society in the practical management of IP addresses.”
The above text (in Section 5.1 and 5.2) does not make clear that, by default, governments and civil society are included, and actually do participate, in the Policy Development Process used in the public forums of the RIRs *. This process is inclusive, allowing for the active participation of the diverse range of stakeholders from industry, government and civil society. The fact is that the Policy Development Process used in the public RIR forums allows all stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process and to ensure their input is included in the establishment of consensus-based policy. Governments and civil society may not be sufficiently aware that they can participate in this process, but this open and inclusive process is open to any and all input from governments and civil society, should they exercise their right to participate.
“There is no role for multilingualism in the IP numbering and addressing system. Nevertheless it would be helpful if written policies in this field, developed by RIRs, would be available in the local languages of the region.”
The above text is unclear, and could imply that the RIRs themselves develop IP address policies. The RIRs facilitate the development of policies needed to guide the management of Internet resources regionally and globally. These polices are developed by a Policy Development Process that is consensus-based and open to all stakeholders from industry, government and civil society.
In order to meaningfully assess the issues relevant to IP addresses, the WGIG needs to present a clear and accurate description of the current IP address Policy Development Process. This process is open, transparent and inclusive of the active participation of both public and private sector bodies as well as civil society.
We fully acknowledge that there is a valid role for governments in the administration of the Internet. If the WGIG papers could be more accurate and inclusive in their description of the current IP address policy processes, it would make it easier to explore how governments, and intergovernmental organisations, could productively engage with the current, successful model of Internet administration.
To encourage this, the RIRs have been actively engaged in outreach efforts designed to foster an open, constructive and detailed dialogue regarding the current issues involved in the IP address Policy Development Process. In recent years, these outreach efforts have focused particularly on governments and regulators in order to open additional channels of communication and to further increase participation by the public sector in the IP address Policy Development Process. The RIRs will continue these outreach efforts to ensure that all stakeholders, including governments and civil society, are fully aware how they can participate in these processes, should they wish to exercise their right to participate. We invite comments and advice on how we can further improve our outreach efforts.
* At RIPE Meetings 46, 47 and 48 government representatives accounted for 7% of total attendees.
See RIPE and the Policy Development Processes, p.11 - http://www.ripe.net/meetings/roundtable/march2005/ripepdp.pdf
We appreciate the efforts that have been put into the production of this draft document. It is reassuring to see the draft documents are improving in quality and in accuracy, and we commend the authors for their continued efforts.
While this draft document represents clear progress towards comprehensive coverage of IP address administration, we feel it is important to correct details that are still not accurate. We are particularly concerned to see that there are still areas that might be misinterpreted, particularly regarding the description of the IP address Policy Development Process used to formulate address allocation rules. We would like the WGIG to note that this Policy Development Process is open to any and all interested parties, including governments, civil society and the private sector.
In the interest of full transparency and clarity, we will comment on particular sections of the draft working paper below. For ease of reference we will quote the relevant text from the paper in full before giving our reaction to it.
Paragraph 1
“The IP Address System is part of the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. Each Domain Name needs an IP number. IP numbers are allocated, on documented requests, in form of address blocks from IANA to the RIRs and from the RIRs to the ISPs or other units, which register domain names.”
The references to domain names here are misleading since IP addresses have a much more fundamental purpose. We suggest the following replacement text:
“The IP Address System is part of the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. Every device connected to the Internet needs an IP address (IP number), and network providers normally require many addresses in order to establish Internet-connected services. IP addresses are allocated in blocks, in response to documented requests, from the IANA to RIRs, and from RIRs to ISPs.
IP addresses are fundamentally different from Domain Names in the functions that they fulfil, their essential characteristics, and the ways in which they are distributed and managed. The DNS provides a lookup service for IP addresses, allowing Internet users to identify sites and services according to (supposedly) memorable names rather than their numeric IP addresses. The DNS is also dynamic, allowing the IP address associated with a name to be changed invisibly to the user, a feature which allows a degree of portability of Internet services. The DNS is, as its name implies, a service which operates on the Internet - and without it the Internet could still operate (though with considerable inconvenience to its users); IP addresses are fundamental to the Internet itself.”
Paragraph 2
“The IPv4 address space has a capacity of about 4 billion addresses. There are different interpretations about the unused IPv4 space. While some groups argue, that the Internet community is running out of new IPv4 addresses, there is evidence that only half of the IPv4 addresses are used at the moment. A substantial number of IPv4 address blocks are allocated to individual organizations but are not used.”
This paragraph implies that basic details regarding IP address utilisation are the subject of legitimate debate. On the contrary, accurate and objective data is available to describe many aspects of the IP address management system, including: the amount of unallocated IPv4 address space held by the IANA (currently 29% of the total IPv4 address space); the amount of IPv4 address space actually used on the Internet (32.15% of the total IPv4 address space); and the rate of allocation of IPv4 address space (2.5% of total IPv4 address space was allocated in 2004). From this factual data, many reliable conclusions can be drawn; it is objectively clear for instance that we are not in immediate danger of running out of IPv4 address space.
The WGIG should recognise that some arguments that have been brought to bear in current debates in Internet Governance have less merit than others, and that some are simply incorrect. In order to reach truly valuable conclusions, we hope that the WGIG, as an expert group, will produce reports which are as precise and as factually accurate as possible.
Paragraph 3
“In the middle of the 1990s, a more extended Internet Address Protocol (IPv6) was developed which creates de facto an unlimited address space. Transition from IPv4 to IPv6 has started already before 2000 but has moved forward slowly.”
While it is true that IPv6 offers vastly more address space than IPv4, this space is not unlimited and there remain similarities in the way this space needs to be managed. There will continue to be a need for:
“ICCAN/IANA allocates blocks of IP address space to the RIRs. Policies for the allocation of IP addresses are developed under the regional Policy Development Process in the Public Forums of the Regional Internet Registries. These policies have been developed bottom up and are specifically designed to meet the needs of the regional Internet community. Each RIRs Public Forum is sovereign in its policy development process. The RIRs are membership-based organizations. Members are mainly Internet Services Providers (ISPs), telecommunication organizations and large corporations. RIPE NCC has for instance more than 3800 members.”
It is important to point out that the IP address Policy Development Process described above is open, transparent and inclusive. It includes the active participation of both public and private sector bodies as well as civil society. The formal Policy Development Process, along with publicly available and archived, open mailing lists, enable Internet address management policies to take into account the broad perspectives of all relevant stakeholders. The role of the RIRs is to facilitate these processes, help their communities build consensus-based policies and then to ensure that these policies are applied fairly and consistently. Also, while RIRs are fundamentally autonomous, close cooperation is undertaken among all RIRs to maintain the consistency of policies developed, and ensure that any divergence is consistent with the technical and operational requirements of a stable Internet infrastructure.
It is important to recognise that these IP address policies are formed and approved by the Internet community at large, not by RIRs themselves or by RIR staff. This community includes governments, civil society and RIR members and non-members. The executive boards of the RIRs, while directly elected by the RIR memberships, also do not form or approve IP address policies.
“The general process of the management of IP addresses is rather transparent and democratic. IP addresses are allocated on the basis of requests for documented needs to members of the RIRs. There are no limitations on membership of RIRs.
There is no formal involvement of governments and civil society in the RIR structures. Governments have used the channel of the Governmental Advisory Committee to comment on IP address policies and in particular to the transfer to the IPv6 address space and the establishment of new Regional Internet Registries, in particular for Africa. However, they have no decision-making authority in the establishment of policy.”
“The management of IP addresses is primarily in the hands of the private sector, that is ICANN/IANA and the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs). The RIRs have demonstrated their capability to fulfill their tasks and to make their contribution to the functioning of the Internet. They have been able to manage the transfer of functions from ARIN to LACNIC and from ARIN, RIPE NCC and APNIC to AFRINIC in a way which did not only not interrupt Internet services and connectivity for end users but also developed broader opportunities for the regional Internet community in regions served by the new RIRs. IP numbers are considered a valuable international resource shared by all users in all nations. Although it can be said that the current management system and distribution of responsibilities for number allocation has worked so far, the rapid increase of demand and utilization of the internet requires a review of the current numbering management approach to ensure equitable distribution of resources and access for all.
As said above, there is no involvement of governments and civil society in the practical management of IP addresses.”
The above text (in Section 5.1 and 5.2) does not make clear that, by default, governments and civil society are included, and actually do participate, in the Policy Development Process used in the public forums of the RIRs *. This process is inclusive, allowing for the active participation of the diverse range of stakeholders from industry, government and civil society. The fact is that the Policy Development Process used in the public RIR forums allows all stakeholders to participate in the decision-making process and to ensure their input is included in the establishment of consensus-based policy. Governments and civil society may not be sufficiently aware that they can participate in this process, but this open and inclusive process is open to any and all input from governments and civil society, should they exercise their right to participate.
“There is no role for multilingualism in the IP numbering and addressing system. Nevertheless it would be helpful if written policies in this field, developed by RIRs, would be available in the local languages of the region.”
The above text is unclear, and could imply that the RIRs themselves develop IP address policies. The RIRs facilitate the development of policies needed to guide the management of Internet resources regionally and globally. These polices are developed by a Policy Development Process that is consensus-based and open to all stakeholders from industry, government and civil society.
In order to meaningfully assess the issues relevant to IP addresses, the WGIG needs to present a clear and accurate description of the current IP address Policy Development Process. This process is open, transparent and inclusive of the active participation of both public and private sector bodies as well as civil society.
We fully acknowledge that there is a valid role for governments in the administration of the Internet. If the WGIG papers could be more accurate and inclusive in their description of the current IP address policy processes, it would make it easier to explore how governments, and intergovernmental organisations, could productively engage with the current, successful model of Internet administration.
To encourage this, the RIRs have been actively engaged in outreach efforts designed to foster an open, constructive and detailed dialogue regarding the current issues involved in the IP address Policy Development Process. In recent years, these outreach efforts have focused particularly on governments and regulators in order to open additional channels of communication and to further increase participation by the public sector in the IP address Policy Development Process. The RIRs will continue these outreach efforts to ensure that all stakeholders, including governments and civil society, are fully aware how they can participate in these processes, should they wish to exercise their right to participate. We invite comments and advice on how we can further improve our outreach efforts.
*At RIPE Meetings 46, 47 and 48 government representatives accounted for 7% of total attendees.
]]>UK ISPA is a Trade Association for providers of Internet services and promotes competition, self-regulation and the development of the Internet industry. The UK ISPA council nominated the RIPE NCC for the award as recognition “for their efforts to stop the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) from undermining the tried and trusted systems of Internet governance, with the threat of bureaucracy, government interference and disruption to the very essence of why the Internet is a success.”
The Internet Hero shortlist reflects the UK ISPA Council’s opinion as to the people and organisations that have helped the interests of the Internet industry. The UK ISPA Council selects the shortlist and eventual winner in these categories.
“We are delighted to have been nominated for this award,” said Axel Pawlik, Managing Director of the RIPE NCC. “The RIPE NCC and the other Regional Internet Registries have always worked closely together to represent the needs of their communities. We have participated in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) for over a year, and we will continue to ensure that the views and needs of our communities regarding IP address space distribution are represented and understood. The positive feedback we have received from our members, industry partners and the Internet community at large has been very encouraging.”
The winner of the Internet Hero award will be announced at the 2005 UK ISPAs to be held at The London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square, on 24 February 2005.
More information is available at:
http://www.ispaawards.org.uk
A series of 'draft working papers' prepared by WGIG members can be found at:
http://www.wgig.org/working-papers.html
A template to submit comments on the draft papers can be found at:
http://www.wgig.org/docs/comment-template.doc
Comments should be submitted to wgig _at_ unog _dot_ ch.
As stated on the WGIG website:
"Governments and all stakeholders are