IANA Stewardship Transition To Be Completed By July-September 2016

Both the Cross Community Working Group (CCWG) on Enhancing ICANN Accountability and the IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group (ICG) responses to NTIA's request for an estimated completion date (including implementation period) for the IANA stewardship transition, indicate a target completion date by the end of July 2016, with the CCWG advising that additional time may be required until September, 2016. The current IANA functions contract between ICANN and the US government's Commerce Department ends September 30, 2015, but by its terms may be extended. Based on these responses, one would expect an extension of the contract period in order to provide for completion of the IANA stewardship transition by the estimated July-September 2016, time period.

The CCWG-Accountability's letter was sent to NTIA Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling on July 3rd and states (emphasis added):

"CCWG-Accountability will aim to get that final proposal to our chartering organizations by October, hoping to receive their approvals by the conclusion of the ICANN 54 meeting in Dublin in late October. If all goes as planned, we could submit our final proposal to the ICANN Board by November, along with bylaws changes that are ready for adoption by the Board. We anticipate our proposal would then be forwarded to your office without delay, meaning that NTIA could potentially begin its review in November. You indicated in Buenos Aires that NTIA anticipates 4-5 months for its review, including the 30 legislative days that Congress would require per pending legislation [DOTCOM Act of 2015]. Once NTIA and Congress have completed their review, CCWG-Accountability and ICANN would complete the required implementation tasks that go beyond bylaws adoption. We expect to have implementation of Work Stream 1 issues finalized by the end of July 2016 and have any remaining items duly committed by that same date in order to enable transition. Please note that our assessment is based on best case scenarios and that this timeline could slip if further adjustments to the proposal should be needed in order to find consensus within our group. It may therefore be prudent to anticipate that CCWG-Accountability might need additional time, perhaps until September 2016."

Likewise, the response of ICG states (emphasis added):

"... As noted in your letter and discussed during ICANN 53, there are three phases remaining before the transition will be complete: (1) the finalization of the transition proposal, (2) the U.S. Government’s evaluation of the proposal, and (3) the implementation of the work items identified by the communities as prerequisites for the transition. Phase 1: Transition proposal finalization - The ICG received and assessed the proposals from the number resources and protocol parameters communities earlier this year. We have just received the domain names proposal from the CWG on June 25. The finalization steps that remain include the ICG’s assessment of the domain names proposal, the ICG’s assessment of the combined proposal containing all three components, solicitation and analysis of public comments, and possibly further work in the operational communities depending on the results of the assessments and public comment analysis ...The ICG estimates that all of these steps could be concluded in time for the ICG to deliver the final proposal to NTIA via the ICANN Board in the time frame of ICANN 54 in October ... Phase 2: U.S. Government evaluation ... the U.S. Government’s evaluation period is estimated to last four to five months. Assuming the transition proposal is finalized in the ICANN 54 time frame, this would imply that the U.S. Government’s evaluation could conclude around March 2016. Phase 3: Implementation of prerequisites - The ICG inquired with the operational communities and the ICANN Board concerning implementation time frames. Links to their responses are included at the end of this letter ... Taken together, the responses indicate that the longest implementation step that can be estimated at this time relates to the creation of the PTI, which may require three to four months. Many of the preparatory steps for implementation across the three communities can take place in parallel assuming availability of community and ICANN staff resources to complete those steps. Those preparatory steps may occur throughout all three phases before the transition is complete in its entirety. For other steps it is not possible to estimate the time necessary at present. Given these factors, we believe that at a minimum three to four months will be required to complete the transition after the proposal is approved by the U.S. government. This would imply that at the earliest the transition could complete in the July 2016 time frame."

Correspondence Links: (pdf)
http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/accountability-cross-community/attachments/20150703/4f315121/CCWG_NTIA_reply-0001.pdf

http://www.ianacg.org/icg-files/correspondence/2015-07-06-Letter-from-ICG-to-to-NTIA.pdf

Responses to ICG time frame inquiries:

IETF: http://mm.ianacg.org/pipermail/internal-cg_ianacg.org/2015-June/000607.html
CRISP: Team and NRO EC: http://mm.ianacg.org/pipermail/internal-cg_ianacg.org/2015-June/000688.html
CWG-Stewardship: http://mm.ianacg.org/pipermail/internal-cg_ianacg.org/2015-June/000636.html
ICANN Board: http://mm.ianacg.org/pipermail/internal-cg_ianacg.org/2015-June/000665.html

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ICANN, IANA Transition, New DOTCOM Act, Enactment Likely (video)

Above video is a session at the Techonomy Policy conference, June 9, 2015, on the Worrisome Future of the Internet (Policy 15 - Techonomy): Fadi Chehadé, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN); Steve DelBianco, NetChoice; Miriam Sapiro, Summit Strategies International and The Brookings Institution; Moderator: Gordon Goldstein, Silver Lake - discussion includes the IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability. Beginning @12:55 Steve DelBianco discusses Congressional bipartisan support for an amended DOTCOM Act (see below).

"Subject: Bipartisan Amendment to DOTCOM Act -- Attached please find a copy of the Amendment in the Nature of a Substitute that Chairman Walden, Ranking Member Pallone, and Mr. Shimkus have agreed to.  As we mentioned on calls to many of you, we think this amendment represents a responsible path forward that respects the multistakeholder process without abrogating our Committee's oversight of NTIA. Very shortly, we will be noticing a subcommittee markup for this Wednesday, where we expect the subcommittee will favorably report H.R. 805 to the Committee with bipartisan support." (emphasis added) Attachment: "Domain Openness Through Continued Oversight Matters Act of 2015" / DOTCOM Act of 2015 (pdf) which provides an amended new title: "A bill to provide for certain requirements relating to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority stewardship transition."-- posted on the ICANN CCWG-Accountability mail list by Paul Rosenzweig who also stated:

"... [the legislation] will be considered in Congress tomorrow [Wednesday, June 10, 2015] relating to the IANA transition. Unlike other bills floating in Congress, this one has the support of the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. In other words, it has support of both Democrats and Republicans and, implicitly, is likely something the Administration would accept. Thus, though one can never be sure in these matters, I assess it as reasonably likely that this bill will become law.

"On the merits, my own sense is that many in the community will welcome the provisions of this bill. First, and foremost, it puts Congress on record in favor of the overall goal of having the transition happen, thus laying to rest concerns that some in Congress might seek to short-circuit the process. In more detail ... the bill provides:

"1. There will be 30 legislative days (i.e. working week days) after notification to Congress prior to the transfer going into effect. This will allow Congress to review the terms of the transfer. To stop it, however, would require a separate bill enacted into law.

"2. It requires NTIA to certify that the proposed transition meets the five criteria set by the NTIA at the start of the process. This seems a very modest requirement, since if our proposal did not meet that set of requirements, NTIA would not approve it in the first instance.

"3. It also requires NTIA to certify that ICANN has approved and implemented all required bylaw changes contained in the final report of the CCWG and the CWG before the transition occurs, i.e., ICANN has to follow through and complete the bylaw revision process before the formal termination of the contract." (emphasis added)

From the amended/substituted HR 805:

"Requirements for IANA Stewardship Transition: .... a certification by the Assistant Secretary [Larry Strickling, NTIA] that— (A) such proposal— (i) supports and enhances the multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance; (ii) maintains the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet domain name system; (iii) meets the needs and expectations of the global customers and partners of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority services; (iv) maintains the openness of the Internet; and (v) does not replace the role of the NTIA with a government-led or intergovernmental organization solution; and (B) the required changes to ICANN’s by-laws contained in the final report of ICANN’s Cross Community Working Group on Enhancing ICANN Accountability and the changes to ICANN’s bylaws required by ICANN’s IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group [ICG] have been implemented." (emphasis added)

The current NTIA-ICANN IANA Functions Contract (pdf) expires September 30, 2015, but contains an option period of October 1, 2015 - September 30, 2017.


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