Report on ICANN Mar del Plata Meeting – K Davidson 20/04/05
Saturday 2 April
Meeting of the GAC<>ccNSO Liaison Committee. Agreed on agenda items for the joint GAC/ccNSO session, scheduled for 2 hours on Wednesday.
Discussed, without resolution, issues of joint concern with ICANN Strategic Plan.
Discussed at length the adoption of the GAC Principles on ccTLD’s, and the fact that ongoing changes to the Principles by GAC since Capetown essentially gave the ccNSO a constantly moving target resulting in an inability for ccNSO to provide input. Advised by GAC that there would not be any opportunity for ccNSO to make meaningful submissions, and the Principles would be adopted by GAC at this meeting.
Brief discussion on Accountability Frameworks – to become topic for Luxembourg GAC ccNSO meeting.
Disappointed to learn that Paul Twomey was ill and would not be in Mar del Plata.
Sunday 3 April
Attended wwTLD meeting. This meeting organised mainly by the Latin American ccTLD operators, and in contrast with recent wwTLD meetings, was very well attended, and included a very comprehensive agenda.
Full reports and presentations from the day located at
www.wwtld.org/meetings/cctld/20050403.MardelPlata-documents.html
I would suggest Councillors, and perhaps also NZRS look at presentations from Item 6 on the agenda “Risk Management on ccTLD’s”.
Monday 4 April
ccNSO agenda at www.icann.org/meetings/mardelplata/ccnso-agenda.html
The Chair introduced Donna Austin as the ICANN staff member appointed to liaise with the ccNSO. Donna is Australian, and used to assist Paul Twomey when he served as GAC Chair.
Attended ccNSO Members meeting. Good address from IANA’s Doug Barton, but ongoing refusal to provide ccNSO with the actual cost of administering the cc’s requirements of IANA. Suggestion however from ICANN that the total cost, including IANA functions, that directly relates to ccTLD operations is US$1.1million and ICANN looking for ccTLD community to come up with a model to finance that amount.
Noted that Barbara Roseman has been employed by Doug Barton to assist management of IANA.
ccNSO website now live (thanks to Ian from TWNIC) at www.ccnso.org – but yet to be populated with full information.
Theresa Swinehart from ICANN gave a useful de-brief on the WSIS / WGIG progress and its implications for ICANN. As a result of the presentation, and subsequent discussions with InternetNZ member Marilyn Cade, I thought it wise that InternetNZ holds back its submissions to WGIG until further improvements to our submission presentation can be made. Discussed and subsequently received significant input from Marilyn. ccNSO considering formulating its own position paper for submission to WGIG.
Useful to note that the ccNSO elected ICANN board members Peter Dengate Thrush and Demi Getschko took strong interest in the ccNSO meetings and appeared to be “listening to their constituency”.
Tuesday 5 April
Ad-hoc meeting with Calvin Browne from .za on organisational aspects and sponsorships of the Cape Town ICANN meeting.
Attended continuation of ccNSO Members meeting. Accountability Frameworks was the hot topic of the day, and useful update from .nl that their framework is now fully agreed and ready to be signed off by Govt, ccTLD and ICANN. All documents to become public after signing.
The ICANN Strategic Plan and Business Plan/Budget got another solid workover, with still the ccNSO adamant that it has no issues with funding those aspects of ICANN which directly relate, and the requirement that the ccTLD’s be engaged in bottom-up decision making with ICANN, rather than the continuance of top-down that plagued ICANN in the past. One issue of significance to the meeting was ICANN’s concept of deploying numerous regional offices – which the ccTLDs questioned the necessity for, again pointing out that the IANA functions are best addressed to a single office. Working group to be established for budget apportionment modelling.
The ccNSO secretariat was discussed, with a desire from the ccNSO Chair to re-litigate the decisions made in Cape Town. There seemed to be the suggestion that Donna Austin might be able to serve as the ccNSO secretariat. Some reiteration of the needs of an independent (from ICANN) secretariat by the ccNSO was again expressed. A recommendation was that the ccNSO look to have firm resolution on the Secretariat function by Luxembourg. As David Farrar is the Asia Pacific representative on the Secretariat Appointment Committee, I feel it a) important that DPF stimulates action within the Committee and b) attends ICANN Luxembourg with a view to having an appointment process in place. My feeling is that delaying the appointment will inevitably lead to a process of osmosis whereby ICANN staff provide the secretariat function.
GAC / ccNSO joint session was held in the ccNSO meeting room and was surprisingly well attended by GAC members. For the first time in ICANN history, joint presentations from cc and GAC representatives were made, which included the presentation of 3 very different ccTLD models, varying from Government hands off (UK) to fuller Government engagement (Korea) with some Government involvement (Chile) as a mid-range option. This gave rise to a feeling within the GAC that “one size fits all” may not be possible, but unfortunately too late to influence the GAC Principles on ccTLD’s.
GAC advised that they had adopted their new Principles for ccTLD’s, the final document at
http://194.78.218.67/web/docs/cctld/ccTLD_Principles_MDP_Final.rtf. Council should read this document, and may seek to recommend next steps for InternetNZ to pursue. At this stage the GAC have adopted the Principles for GAC purposes only, and it appears unlikely they will recommend adoption by the ICANN Board, so our (or any ccTLD) input is possibly forlorn. It seems a pity to me, as much progress has been made in liaison between GAC and the cc’s in general, and the GAC not wanting or seeking cc input does not aid the cause. The Principles are much improved (from a ccTLD perspective) over early drafts, and significantly more pragmatic than the WSIS/WGIG position, but are still slanted towards a “one size fits all” and “Sovereign Rights over Country Codes” base.
Attended the public session discussing the ICANN Strategic Plan. Very good presentation by Verisign. While the current version of the Strat Plan has taken many submissions from many constituencies into account, the general feeling was that the Plan is becoming more useful but needs more work.
Wednesday 6 April
Ad-hoc meetings with various potential sponsors for Wellington meeting. Formed the impression, and confirmed by discussions with previous ICANN meeting hosts, that regardless of the levels of sponsorship sought, the amounts contributed by the ongoing significant sponsors were not varied by any significant amount.
Attended ccNSO Council meeting, nothing significant to note, Council is working functionally on the tasks coming forward from the members and the established committees and working groups.
Afternoon attended an ad-hoc meeting called by Marilyn Cade to further investigate improvements to the methodology of the ICANN Strat Plan.
Also attended afternoon Public Forum session in parts, and usefully briefed by the DNC on the parts I missed.
Attended ICANN Soccer Tournament in the evening and ended up being stand-in coach for final ccTLD game.
The cc team performed well, winning 2 of the 3 round robins, and firmly trouncing the ICANN staff team. PDT was a star performer, scoring some excellent goals. Unfortunately were just beaten by the At Large team in the play-off for the bronze medal, but still a great performance.
Thursday 7 April
Attended Public Forum for much of the day, but used the day to catch up with various potential sponsors and previous meeting organisers.
ED, DNC and I met with Michael Evans from ICANN to further discuss Wellington requirements. Requested Michael urgently respond regarding using Duxton or Intercontinental as staff and board accommodation.
ED and I met with Tony Harris from Cabase, the organiser of the MdP meeting. Very frank discussion on aspects of ICANN requirements, sponsorship etc. Enjoyed a drink of the local “tea”, Yerba Mate, with the Cabase techies after inspecting the technical room in the hotel.
Friday 8 April
Attended portions of ICANN Board Meeting. Captured historic moment, of first NZ’er to be represented on the ICANN Board:
The significance of the ICANN planet being directly above PDT is not known…
Congratulations to Peter also for the ccNSO re-nominating PDT to the ICANN board at the expiry of his current term.
Friday afternoon saw our departure to Buenos Aires and the start of flights home. I have always been surprised at every ICANN meeting experiencing a “personal first” and had been disappointed not to have had the experience thus far at MdP. However, the personal first did arise on arrival at Buenos Aires, our driver had missed our turn off and after calling into a Service Station for consultation, he reversed our car back out onto the motorway for several hundred metres, then cut across all lanes of (130 kmh) traffic and then did a U-turn across into the opposite direction!! First time for me for either going backwards on a motorway, or doing a u-turn!!! My heart is still recovering.
General observations on ICANN Meeting
Well run meeting, showing ongoing maturity of the organisation, disrupted slightly through Paul Twomeys non-attendance. Slight hint that ICANN staff might be “returning to type” in top-down decision making. From the ccNSO perspective, steady progress in important areas. InternetNZ needs to maintain strong focus on issues of significance to us.
General observations on Mar Del Plata
MdP is obviously a summer beach resort, and was very quiet during the time of the meeting, with autumn having arrived. Was a good place for the meeting, smaller city of 600,000 population, meant that ICANNers constantly met at bars and restaurants, whereas if the meeting had been held in Buenos Aires, we would have all become anonymous in the crowd. Very cheap shopping, wining and dining, but many places closed down in the “off season”.
Mar del Plata only has 2 flights in or out per day at this time of year, so given the choice of more waiting at airports, or driving, we chose to rent vehicles/drivers to get us from Buenos Aires to MdP, a drive of 450km’s all on motorway.
Food:
- Great choice as long as you enjoy steak
- Not quite up to Brazilian standards as you are unlikely to be served more than one complete animal per sitting.
Wine:
- Quality 8 / 10
- Value for money 10 / 10
General Observations on Meeting Organisation
Sheraton Hotel was the conference venue, good facilities but limited numbers of ICANN attendees staying in-house, was booked out before the website was launched. 5 hotels used, several were greater than walking distance from the conference venue. Regular free shuttle service, or cheap local taxis were readily available.
The main hotel was very well served for broadband by the meeting organisers, and most of the other hotels had some useful alternative broadband connectivity.
Internet was delivered by 2 x 10 Meg satellite links, speed was OK but latency high, although still useable for Skypeing. Unlike many ICANN meetings, connectivity uptime was extremely high, and available *everywhere* in the venue.
Cellular phones generally did not work in Argentina, so rapid deployment of Skype amongst InternetNZ attendees was high. Members of InternetNZ in attendance included Keith Davidson, Peter Dengate Thrush, Marilyn Cade, Richard St Clair, Stafford Guest, and staff members Peter Macaulay and DNC Debbie Monahan. GAC representation for NZ came via our embassy in Buenos Aires, and our Ambassador Carl Worker. We met with Carl on a number of occasions, he was genuinely interested (maybe even fascinated) by the whole Internet governance world, and had a genuine interest and firm handle on the issues of relevance to InternetNZ and the NZ Internet community. NZ Government should be congratulated on ensuring NZ was represented at the GAC.
The organisation of the meeting appeared very smooth outwardly. In many ways, this meeting raised the barrier for future hosts. Lunch was provided free each day, with the hosts having organised a slight increase in hotel room rates to cover this cost. Mostly the free lunch was well received, although sponsors did privately suggest it removed their ability to take out various groups for lunch functions.
There were 2 sponsored evening functions, the first being a welcome ceremony at an inner city hotel ballroom, complete with Latin American dancing and music. The second evening function was to a restaurant for a sit down meal, BBQ. On top of these 2 functions, the soccer tournament was also organised by (and won by!) the local hosts Cabase.
Sponsorship was very forthcoming from the LA region, enabling much of the “additions” to standard RFC responsibilities.
Some 5 sponsorship stands were manned throughout the conference. Official photographer seemed to do quite good business from merely snapping pictures and having them on display to sell.
Keith Davidson
20 April 2005
RECOMMENDATIONS:
1. That this report be received.
2. That the ED write to SSC thanking them for ensuring GAC representation at this meeting, and indicating InternetNZ’s desire for ongoing representation at ICANN meetings.
