NANOG 63: Update on the IANA Transition

ARIN’s John Curran referenced the 14 March 2014 announcement that the United States Government (USG) planned to transition oversight of the IANA functions contract to the global multistakeholder community. He references the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) conditions, namely supporting the multistakeholder model, security and stability, and robustness. It explicitly states that it would not accept a government or multi-government proposal.

The IANA Stewardship Coordination Group (ICG) is chartered to coordinate the development of a proposal from the various communities. The initial community drafts were due 15 Jan, and the next step is for the ICG to synthesize these proposals into a single proposal in response to the NTIA’s requirements.

The end point is a proposal by July 2015 with demonstrated community support based on the supposition that this proposal provides for appropriate oversight and accountability for the IANA function.

Of course post this process, and assuming the US Congress would not disrupt the execution of this plan, then the issues about how to integrate governmental and intergovernmental mechanisms into the broader framework of the global communications endeavour will remain as issues that will not disappear any time soon.

There are now some rumours over a further extension to the IANA functions contract, and comments about the level of “undue haste” on the part of the NTIA to call for a community process across a diverse global multi-stakeholder community certainly appear to have some substance.

There is little choice but to work within the parameters of the timetable as proposed by the NTIA, but on the other hand we’ve now experienced more than a decade of term-by-term extensions for the IANA functions contract, and if the past is any indicator of the future, then that would tend to water down the force of any assertion that “this is the last such contract, truly!”