After almost two decades of promise, and two intense years of hard work from the Internet community, the US government is now in possession of a complete IANA Stewardship Transition plan.
The complete plan was approved by each of ICANN’s stakeholder groups this week and endorsed by the ICANN Board in Marrakech, Morocco, for transmission to the US government.
Steve Crocker hits “send” to @NTIAgov as #ICANN55 comes to a close. #IANAsteward milestone! pic.twitter.com/XjvRh7Mko7
— chrismondini (@chrismondini) March 10, 2016
It’s been a long road to get where we are today. Many thanks need to be given to the tireless efforts of Internet number community representatives throughout this process (especially the CRISP team), but also appreciation to the entire Asia Pacific Internet community for getting involved and having its say in this process.
This process has – once again – demonstrated that the multistakeholder model works, and is the best governance model to maintain a growing, stable and open Internet.
So, where to from here?
The US government will evaluate the plan from the community, in a process that’s expected to take around three months. If the plan is approved by the US government, then the transition of the IANA functions to the Internet community should occur on 30 September 2016.
Related to the plan, I’m pleased to say that the five RIRs and ICANN have settled on a final Service Level Agreement (SLA). This happened very late at the ICANN meeting today and the finishing touches are now being put on the document – this should be available next week.
We’re now nearing the end of this journey which began in earnest on 14 March 2014, although to be precise, began almost two decades ago. Pending a favourable response from the US government later this year, APNIC stands ready to play its part in implementing the transition plan.
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