ARIN MEMBER UPDATE: ASO APPROVED

[Kim Hubbard]

MEMBER UPDATE:  

Last week in Santiago, Chile, the ICANN Board of Directors approved the ASO
proposal submitted by the Regional Registries (ARIN, RIPE and APNIC).  The
next step is for the RIRs boards to draft the MOU.  ICANN has given us a
deadline of October 15 to nominate 3 ICANN Board of Directors from the ASO.

Although the ASO proposal was approved there was a small contingent of
organizations that opposed it on the basis that they should be represented
directly in the ASO rather than through the RIRs. The major stated
motivation of this group, which included AT&T, BT, France Telecom, Deutsche
Telecom, ETSI and CIX, was to be sure that future allocation strategies
take adequate recognition of the special requirements of telephony
(especially mobile telephony) and IP convergence.  In an attempt to satisfy
the concerns raised by this contingent the ICANN Board approved the
following resolution proposed by Hans Kraainjenbrink (ICANN Board member)
to create an ad hoc committee: 

Formation of Ad Hoc Group 
"RESOLVED [99.__] that the Interim President and CEO, working with Director 
Kraaijenbrink, is directed to establish an ad hoc group to be charged with 
developing the objectives and proposing structures for future policies in 
the area of numbering, especially as required to meet global market needs 
and taking into account the convergence of information technology services 
and networks. The group will include representatives of businesses, 
including telecom operators and Internet service providers and trade 
organizations, the ASO Council, the ICANN Board, and other legitimately 
interested parties. The group will present an interim report before the 
second ICANN public meeting in 2000. A final report from the ad hoc group 
will be presented to the ICANN Board prior to the Annual Meeting in 2000."

There is still some question as to exactly what the charter of this
committee will be and who will be allowed to participate. Since the purpose
of this committee is unclear, the RIR representatives suggested delaying a
vote on creating this ad hoc committee until after the community had a
chance to discuss it.  The ICANN Board felt there had already been
extensive discussion. 

Mike Roberts (Interim President of ICANN) has been tasked with determining
a charter for the ad hoc committee and determining who will be allowed to
participate.  We hope that this charter will be available for public
comment prior to committee members being appointed. 

In the meantime, I cannot stress enough how important it is for you and
your organizations to get involved in this process. We will be discussing
ICANN/ASO issues at the public policy meeting in Denver in October.  If
these issues are not listed in your job description :-) and there is
someone else from your organization better suited to deal with the
political side than please bring them along with you to the ARIN public
policy meeting.
 
If you have any comments or questions about the ICANN meeting I will be
more than happy to discuss them with you. Fortunately, there were members
of the ARIN board and Advisory Council in attendance, specifically, Mike
Straty, Ken Fockler, Don Telage (BoT), Cathy Wittbrodt and Jeremy Porter
(AC). All of which I'm sure would be happy to participate in a discussion
on this list.

Thanks,
Kim Hubbard 
ARIN