Progress Report on Performance of IANA Function

August-October 2000

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) submits this report under Order No. 40SBNT067020 to document performance progress during the period August-October 2000 in performing the function of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (the IANA).

General

  • The IANA's program of workflow improvements continued. Additional steps during the period covered by this report included improved application templates, revisions to mail-handling procedures, and mail handling automation, website re-organization.
     
  • On 2 August, IANA personnel gave a presentation to the IETF plenary session regarding its provision of protocol-parameter assignment services under IETF standards.
     
  • The IANA intensified its consultation with the IESG on "IANA Considerations" sections of proposed RFCs.
     
  • In the root-management activities of the IANA, a question arose in August-September regarding the definition of what constitutes a country code. This question arose from the practice of the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency's practice of reserving a alpha-2 code, not formally on the ISO 3166-1 list, to represent a geographic area "for all purposes" and its issuance of a statement that the reserved code could in fact be used for those purposes. The IANA staff sought guidance from the ICANN Board on whether such a code should be treated as though it formally appeared on the ISO 3166-1 list. On 25 September 2000, the Board advised the IANA staff “that alpha-2 codes not on the ISO 3166-1 list are delegable as ccTLDs only in cases where the ISO 3166 Maintenance Agency, on its exceptional reservation list, has issued a reservation of the code that covers any application of ISO 3166-1 that needs a coded representation in the name of the country, territory, or area involved.”
     
  • On 30 August 2000, ICANN and the US Government entered into an amendment to the Joint Project Agreement (JPA)/MOU referred to in Section 12.5 (Performance Exclusions) of the contract under which this report is submitted (i.e. the IANA functions contract). http://www.icann.org/general/amend2-jpamou-07sep00.htm That amendment requires ICANN to “continue its efforts to achieve stable agreements with the organizations operating country-code top level domains that cover the delegation and redelegation issues; allocation of global and local policy-formulation responsibility; and the relationships among ccTLD operators, the relevant government of public authority[, and ICANN].” As noted in Section 12.5 of the IANA functions contract, “policy-development procdures developed under the JPA may result in adoption of new or changed policies concerning Internet technical management functions,” which may be implemented upon mutual agreement of the parties.
     
  • In a resolution (related to the one discussed above) adopted on 25 September 2000, the ICANN Board advised the IANA staff (consistent with the JPA/MOU amendment described above) “that in view of the state of ongoing discussions directed toward reaching stable and appropriate agreements between ICANN and the ccTLD organizations, delegation of additional ccTLDs should be finalized only upon achievement of stable and appropriate agreements between ICANN and the ccTLD organization, in a form approved by the Board.”

IANA Function Status:

1) Coordination of the assignment of technical protocol parameters:

  • The protocol aspects of the IANA function were, with a few minor exceptions, current. Most exceptions are due to the fact that the IANA is waiting for advice from IETF-appointed experts on various matters.
     
  • Constantly updated, at: http://www.iana.org/numbers.html
     
  • See also statistical chart below under Protocols.

2) Administrative functions associated with root management:

  • See http://www.iana.org/cctld/cctld-whois.htm for full list of ccTLD Root Zone Whois Information

3) Allocation of IP address blocks:

  • See statistical chart below under Addresses.

4) Other services:

  • In mid-September, the IANA delegated e164.arpa, after consultations with the Internet Architecture Board.
     

Statistical Information:

Protocols

Year 2000 August September October
User Ports 6 43 46
Sys Ports 0 2 0
Prot #s 0 0 0
MIME 7 2 9
MIBs 14 6 3
Pr Ent #s 242 324 349
Other 22 16 13

Addresses

Year 2000 August September October
Multicast 0 0 0
Cable 1 blk 0 0
AS #s 1 blk 0 0
RIR Alloc 0 0 0

Root Management

During the three-month period covered by this report, the IANA received and sent 665 e-mail messages relating to 96 different ccTLDs. During this period, the IANA submitted requests for 41 changes (36 of which concerned ccTLDs; 30 ccTLDs were involved) to root-zone information and root-zone-contact information, 36 of which required Commerce Department approval. A monthly breakdown follows:

Year 2000 August September October
ccTLD E-mails 215 212 238
ccTLDs Involved 41 48 55
Total Requests 11 10 20
ccTLD Requests 8 9 19
ccTLDs Involved 7 9 17
DOC Approval 11 8 17