Report on NCC progress toward ICANN Address Supporting Organisation (IMPORTANT)

This is a summary of activities undertaken by RIPE NCC on the 
formation of an Address Supporting Organisation to affiliate to
ICANN since the 32nd RIPE meeting in Amsterdam.  At that meeting,
we heard from Esther Dyson, interim chairman of ICANN, on the need
for an ASO to develop policy in the area of Internet addresses.
She, in turn, got to meet us and to see the open forum that is 
RIPE in action, discussing and forming Internet policy in Europe.
She expressed the view that RIPE made sense and the hope that RIPE 
would become involved in ICANN and in the formation of the ASO.

In plenary, RIPE 32 clearly said that it wanted to maintain a
bottom-up structure in Internet governance, with working and
representative regional structures forming the basis of bodies
such as the ASO.  Least of all did they want a situation whereby
ISPs would be obliged to argue their views on address policy in
both European and global forums.

Mandated by these clear expressions of policy, RIPE NCC undertook to 
engage in fresh discussions with the other RIRs, APNIC and ARIN.  The
NCC arranged a teleconference involving exec and board members of all
three RIRs.  This established a good deal of common round, including
the importance of transparent and open process, and of representative
structures.  The RIRs and their communities were the most directly
concerned with address policy and as such should have a key role in
the ASO.  The views of other groups were also important, and three
possible sectors were identified here: government (representing the general
public interest), engineering (with an overview of what was technically
feasible), and industry (in the widest sense of the Internet).

It was agreed to continue this discussion at the APNIC meeting in 
Singapore at the end of February, again with exec and board members
of the three RIRs.  There, the process was further opened, with 
EuroISPA and CIX being invited to attend.  These two bodies had 
made a joint ASO proposal to ICANN, although they had neither advised
nor consulted any of the RIRs about this.  While anyone is of
course at liberty to make a proposal to ICANN, RIPE NCC believes that
this should be done in conformance with the open and transparent 
ethos of ICANN.  Indeed, we believe that the RIPE NCC association
can speak for you in matters of address policy; we have an obligation
to do so on your behalf in external forums, provided we continue to 
listen to your views and to give effect to them in a clear and
impartial manner.

At the same time, we recognise that RIPE NCC does not represent 
ISPs in all aspects of their business, and that there are areas
of concern which might best be addressed by trade associations such
as EuroISPA.  However, when it comes to address policy, you, through
RIPE, are the people who have formed the working policies in Europe
in the past decade, and RIPE NCC is your association which has 
helped to implement those policies, openly and impartially, on our
behalf, and to represent those policies to other RIRs and to IANA.

At the meeting in Singapore, the consensus was that time should be 
taken to produce a set of solid ASO principles and a charter, rather
then being driven by looming deadlines.  We are determined to pursue
a course of action which will do justice to the collective opinion
of members of the RIPE NCC association, and to the work which you
have done in shaping and self-regulating the Internet in Europe.
We welcome your views on these matters and look forward to representing
them in the formation of the ASO.

We encourage RIPE participants and RIPE NCC members to follow and
participate in the formation process of the ICANN ASO - more
information can be found at:

	http://www.ripe.net/info/ncc/regional.html
and	http://www.icann.org


Keith Mitchell
Chairman, on behalf of the
RIPE NCC Executive Board