.ie to be regulated by ComReg, in Comms Misc Bill

jwt

just as the .ie domain is starting to reduce in price we want to give it to ComReg???????????????



The expression "NO F***ING WAY" comes to mind!

John

jmcc

jwt wrote:

just as the .ie domain is starting to reduce in price we want to give it to ComReg???????????????
The expression "NO F***ING WAY" comes to mind!

Given the way that the board of IEDR was filled with mere political and academic appointees who hadn't any operational experience of the domain or hosting business, the move to bring the policy and regulation of .ie cctld within the powers of ComReg and the Minister is a good thing.

I've seen the mess that these people (bear in mind that none of them have operational experience of the domain/hosting business) have made of .ie cctld and it is only recently recovering. Part of it is due to the management, rather than the board of IEDR effectively turning the registry around in economic terms.

Perhaps you haven't been in the hosting business that long but having the .ie ccTLD policy making aspect removed from the unelected and utterly unrepresentative political and academic appointees that make up the board of IEDR is a good thing.

I would like to see an industry oversight group set up to advise ComReg and the Minister as part of this move - and not one that is staffed by a bunch of **** from useless management consultancies and perpetual political committee joiners. This has to be a group with real players from the industry.

Regards...jmcc

jwt

I thought that things had improved in recent months, maybe I was reading the wrong blogs

But still, do you really think ComReg would make a better go of it??????

I would have a thought an industry represantative body made up of elected people would be better?


John

jmcc

jwt wrote:

I thought that things had improved in recent months, maybe I was reading the wrong blogs

They have improved somewhat but what has been happening over the past year or so should really have been happening from the start. It was a big mistake for the government to hand over the national domain to a bunch of useless political and academic appointees. As a result .ie ccTLD got driven into the ground. It has taken .ie nearly four years to recover.

But still, do you really think ComReg would make a better go of it?

They cannot do a worse job. Remember that it is the policy making and regulatory aspect that is being removed from IEDR. Not the day to day operation of the domain. The single biggest problem for the industry has been a complete lack of consultation. Though that does seem to be changing now as the management seeks to reinvent IEDR. ComReg would probably be more open to other views than IEDR has been.

I would have a thought an industry represantative body made up of elected people would be better?

It would have to include others with an interest in .ie ccTLD as well. The situation got so bad at one stage that there were strong concerns for the viability of .ie ccTLD and this is why the Minister brought forward the legislation to strip IEDR of its regulatory and policy control aspects. The Fagan situation (legal action, threatened legal action, disagreements between the management (Fagan) and the board of IEDR and the ccTLD reduced to an international laughing stock) really drove the stake through the heart of IEDR competency as regards public perception. The government had to move on the situation and bringing it under ComReg was, perhaps, the logical solution.

Regards...jmcc

damien

jmcc wrote:

the move to bring the policy and regulation of .ie cctld within the powers of ComReg and the Minister is a good thing.

The Bill is giving the responsibility of it to ComReg, from the Minister. It was the DCMNR who had oversight on it all along.

ComReg would probably be more open to other views than IEDR has been.

Who resells a lot of .ie domains? Oh, that would be eircom. You do recall our current regulatory climate don't you, which appears dictated by one very large telco? I have no doubt that ComReg would be very open to the views of others.

jmcc

damien.m wrote:

The Bill is giving the responsibility of it to ComReg, from the Minister. It was the DCMNR who had oversight on it all along.

Not quite. IEDR was making its own policy and rules on .ie ccTLD and has being doing so since it was incorporated. As for DCMNR oversight - don't make me laugh. If DCMNR had being paying attention it would have had .ie management removed from IEDR as soon as the cracks became evident in the Fagan era.

Who resells a lot of .ie domains? Oh, that would be eircom.

Damien don't even think about arguing about domain stats with me. Eircom has a historically large holding of .ie domains but in terms of new and renewed domains, it has the same pattern as a medium sized hoster. The HSPs such as Hosting365, Blacknight, Register.ie and Irishdomains.com account for the bulk of the growth in .ie domains and have done so for the last two years. The new fee structure removes the Volume Rebate Scheme which benefited the historically large .ie hosters like Eircom and Esat and put HSPs (who sell more .ie domains than the all ISPs combined). It also levels the playing field somewhat and removes the cartel like advantage that Eircom and Esat had over .ie domains.

The 01/January/2006 Figures for the Irish hosting business show how the market has changed:

	Hosters	Domains	Market Share	Market Segments			
Tier 1  22      24781   22.45%	Traditional Early Market Hosters (ISPs)			
Tier 2  24      60727   55.02%	Hosting Service Providers > 500 domains		
Tier 3  66      14090   12.77%	HSPs 101 - 500 domains			
Tier 4  329     10114    9.16%	HSPs/Web Developers 7 - 100 domains		
Tier 5  388       835    0.97%	 Individuals/Firms/Web Developers < 7 domains
Tier 6  44       1086    0.98% Educational And Government And Registry		

According to nameserver data:
Hosting365 7.93%
Eircom.net 9.92%
Esat 5.78%
Novara 6.06%
Irishdomains 6.64%
Hostireland 2.96%
UTV 2.47%
Blacknight 2.38%.

Last January the figures were quite different:
Hosting365 5.69%
Eircom.net 12.68%
Esat 8.17%
Novara 5.39%
Irishdomains 6.8%
Hostireland 2.84%
UTV 3.08%
Blacknight 1.08%

IEDR itself has around 10.5% of the .ie domain registrations market.

You do recall our current regulatory climate don't you, which appears dictated by one very large telco? I have no doubt that ComReg would be very open to the views of others.

Compared to IEDR's pathetic public consultation record before 2005, it could not do worse.

Regards...jmcc

damien

jmcc wrote:

Not quite. IEDR was making its own policy and rules on .ie ccTLD and has being doing so since it was incorporated. As for DCMNR oversight - don't make me laugh. If DCMNR had being paying attention it would have had .ie management removed from IEDR as soon as the cracks became evident in the Fagan era.

Yes quite. You said:

the move to bring the policy and regulation of .ie cctld within the powers of ComReg and the Minister is a good thing

The DCMNR were already doing this, they are now just passing the buck to ComReg now. If DCMNR did nothing, what do you think ComReg are going to do?

jmcc

damien.m wrote:

The DCMNR were already doing this, they are now just passing the buck to ComReg now. If DCMNR did nothing, what do you think ComReg are going to do?

ComReg may surprise you. At least they will have to consult the public. Under IEDR, the public was specifically excluded from getting a .ie domain. Think about that. The Irish people were specifically excluded from getting a .ie domain. You had to be a business to get a .ie domain and even then you were only allowed one domain.

Regards...jmcc

damien

jmcc wrote:

ComReg may surprise you.

If you can call yourself an expert on the .ie domain space then I'm equally entitled to call myself an expert on ComReg. Yes, they may surprise me. They often do. What I need for them to do is not surprise me but impress me, but I'm easily impressed. If they impress Adam and Peter Wiegl then we're getting somewhere. Til then, well...

jmcc

damien.m wrote:

If you can call yourself an expert on the .ie domain space then I'm equally entitled to call myself an expert on ComReg.

I don't call myself an expert on the .ie ccTLD. But with all due resepect, I hardly think that a mere familiarity with ComReg and its procedures would be in the same category as the kind of work I do on domain industry analysis. Tracking .ie ccTLD involves monitoring the movements of around 54000 domains but I also track the movements of the com/net/org/biz/info domains - around 62 million domains. If there had been a proper registry from the start with proper reporting, consultation and an API and a competent advisory and regulatory body, the .ie ccTLD would probably have a count of around 120,000 domains.

Yes, they may surprise me. They often do. What I need for them to do is not surprise me but impress me, but I'm easily impressed. If they impress Adam and Peter Wiegl then we're getting somewhere. Til then, well...

Well we can only go on the past performance of IEDR.

Regards...jmcc

damien

jmcc wrote:

with all due resepect, I hardly think that a mere familiarity with ComReg and its procedures would be in the same category as the kind of work I do on domain industry analysis.

True, I don't use automated scripts and databases for watching the "watchers".

jmcc

damien.m wrote:

True, I don't use automated scripts and databases for watching the "watchers".

There's quite a bit more to it than that. But then applying the same full source methodology to all ComReg's activity might be upsetting for them.

Regards...jmcc

damien

jmcc wrote:

There's quite a bit more to it than that. But then applying the same full source methodology to all ComReg's activity might be upsetting for them.

Mmm try FOIing them 20 times in 2 months.

cgarvey

(Moved from IoffL thread)

.cg

dahamsta

Yes, ComReg are absolute experts in the field of consultation. However they fall down just a smidge on implementation, which is kind of the point of consulations. (Do I need to state the level of sarcasm in that statement?)

As frightening as it may be for me to say it, the IEDR is doing just fine these days. Prices are coming down year-on-year, and restrictions are being relaxed quietly and carefully. ComReg will make a bollocks of it, just like they've made a bollocks of everything else; not least in letting Eircom bully them, as Damien has suggested.

If ComReg and Eircom were reduced to schoolkids, ComReg would've commited suicide by now. It's a pity some metaphors don't apply in the real world...

adam

jmcc

Ken Shabby wrote:

Yes, ComReg are absolute experts in the field of consultation. However they fall down just a smidge on implementation, which is kind of the point of consulations. (Do I need to state the level of sarcasm in that statement?)

But in this case, the implentation is not the responsibility of ComReg.The implementation remains with IEDR. The policy and regulatory aspect is taken away from the political and academic appointees on the board of IEDR. One of the main objections to the board of IEDR during the Fagan era was that it was stuffed with Telecom Eireann former board members. This legislation neutralises that problem to some extent.

ComReg will make a bollocks of it, just like they've made a bollocks of everything else; not least in letting Eircom bully them, as Damien has suggested.

Eircom has turned around its hosting business but it still suffers from the Biddy Factor (where a prospective sale has to have a phonecall). Retail hosting is an impulse purchase now and if a punter cannot buy online, then the chances are that they will not buy. Given its diminishing market share, I don't think that Eircom will be bothering ComReg too much about its hosting business because it is such a small section of its business.

Regards...jmcc

dahamsta

John, are you seriously trying to tell me that ComReg will ONLY be responsible for consultation, i.e. no implementation whatsoever, no methods to deal with lack of implementation, etc? If that was the case, a consultant would be a hell of a lot cheaper and more efficient. But of course it's not the case.

adam

jmcc

Ken Shabby wrote:

John, are you seriously trying to tell me that ComReg will ONLY be responsible for consultation, i.e. no implementation whatsoever, no methods to deal with lack of implementation, etc? If that was the case, a consultant would be a hell of a lot cheaper and more efficient. But of course it's not the case.

Yep Adam,
that's what it looks like (consultation and policy). Remember that this legislation was formulated in the wake of the Fagan - IEDR problem and the government wanted to be able to dispose of IEDR if it had to. At the time it was a very real possibility and the Minister refused to allow the redelegation of .ie from UCD to IEDR. In fact, the .ie ccTLD was never redelegated to IEDR. ComReg will set the policy and IEDR will have to implement it.

ComReg will be the nuclear option if IEDR becomes a liability in future. ComReg has no implementation functions and is essentially a policy making and regulatory body as regards the .ie ccTLD. While ComReg is a walking cluster**** as regards telco regulation, it may prove better in this case. It is somewhat a separation of powers: IEDR has control, for the moment, over .ie ccTLD from a technical viewpoint and ComReg and the Minister has the power over policy and regulation.It is perhaps, better for the industry that there is such a separation of powers.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon

Comreg are currently handling the process for Enum. They are also an integral part of the ENUM +353 Policy Advisory Board

dahamsta

jmcc wrote:

While ComReg is a walking cluster**** as regards telco regulation, it may prove better in this case.

I can tell you right here and now with zero doubt in my mind: It won't.

adam