IANA | .af Technical Documentation

.af Technical Documentation
(Submitted as Part of .af Redelegation Request)
(10 August 2002)

Technical Documentation

As it recognizes UNDP as a trusted partner in the rebuilding of Afghanistan and a competent technical organization, the Islamic Transitional Government would like to delegate the technical management of the .af ccTLD to UNDP and therefore agrees to transfer the technical administration, and consequentially, the technical contact, to UNDP.

Namely, Mr. Marc Lepage, ICT Programme manager of UNDP would be the technical contact.

Responsibilities and Roles

The Internet domain name system is a public asset, and the .af ccTLD is under the sovereign control of the Transitional Government. UNDP will administer the .af ccTLD for the benefit of the Afghan community.

An oversight committee will be created to advise on issues related to the policies and management of the .af ccTLD. Members of the Afghanistan Domain Administration Committee would be:

The Minister of Telecommunications
UNDP Afghanistan Country Director and Technical Management Focal Point (Mr. Marc Lepage);
Representations from the user community

.af Domain Administrative Management Responsibility:

The Ministry of Communications undertakes to be a trustee of the delegated domain name, and agrees to the domain name administrative and technical support duty to service the country and the global Internet community.

Among its responsibilities are:

To develop and establish a policy framework for the development and administration of the .af ccTLD including:
- Rules governing the operations of second level domain registries;
- The creation of second level domains;
- Rules governing the accreditation of registrars and registry administrators;
- Rules governing the registration of names within second level domains and access to second level domain registries;
- Ensuring that registrars have equal access to second level registry services.
To recognize intellectual property rights of others in terms of domain names,
To ensure non-discriminatory handling of requests,
To allow for public inspection,
To provide fair and equal treatment to all requesting parties,
To follow international accepted three character naming practices – with the registrant’s name under a secondary domain name such as gov, edu, com, org, net.

.af Domain Technical Management Responsibility:

UNDP will assume the responsibilities of the technical management of .af

The principal purposes of UNDP domain administration are:

To be the administrator of, and the Afghanistan self regulatory policy body for the .af ccTLD and its associated Second Level Domains;
To maintain and promote the operational stability and utility of the .af ccTLD;
To ensure a cost effective administration of the .af ccTLD and its sub-domains;
To manage the operation of critical technical functions including:
- The primary and secondary .af name servers;
- Zone files for second level domains; and
- A searchable database containing information on registrations within the .af ccTLD.
To liaise with national and international bodies on issues relating to the development and administration of domain name systems.
To establish appropriate complaints handling and dispute resolution processes to provide for conciliation or redress of grievances on matters associated with the administration of the .af ccTLD.

Proposed Mode of Operation

To fulfill its responsibilities, UNDP will provide the following:

The systems and services including Domain Name System (DNS) to run the .af ccTLD: servers, redundant Internet connections and qualified staff. To ensure resilience of the system, these will be co-hosted in UNDP New York.
Qualified staff in Kabul to operate the registration process and maintenance.
Local capacity building in transferring to local staff trained on the administration.
Electronic mail connectivity to the entire management, staff and contacts of the administrative manager.

UNDP will adopt the following operational guidelines:

Establish mechanisms to ensure it is responsive and accountable to the supply and demand sides of the Afghanistan Internet Community;
Ensure its operations produce timely outputs that are relevant to the needs of the Afghanistan Internet Community;
Ensure all requests for secondary or sub-domain names will be addressed and handled within a reasonable time period of one week.
Leave the administration of the secondary domains to the requesting party.
Advise IANA of domain administration status as required or not less than once every six months, and granted access to the DNS in accordance with accepted practice.
Inform IANA in a timely manner of changes to the information that is maintained in IANA's register database concerning the .af ccTLD. The administrative contact person as specified in the register database must authorize notification of changes. Changes to the Contact Person must be by an authorized member of the board or executive of the ccTLD Manager.

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