Executive Director's Report - 14 December 2007
Telecom Operational Separation
Our main focus in recent weeks has been the preparation of
InternetNZ’s submissions in response to Telecoms operational separation
proposal. The final submission was concise and will hopefully provide
Government sufficient information on which to firm up a robust separation plan.
The media have shown high interest in the issues we have raised, and along with
TUANZ’s submissions, both organisations have received useful mileage and
hopefully some community support for our stance.
The Telecom cabinetisation issue has dominated in the past
week, and Peter Macaulay and myself will be meeting with Telecoms CEO prior to
Christmas to discuss both these issues further.
ICT Week in Parliament
With the pending demise of ICT-NZ this project has been
abandoned.
OOXML Project
Council approved $20,000 for funding an InternetNZ
contractor to work on the ongoing issues with StandardsNZ over the Microsoft
OOXML issues. Colin Jackson has been contracted to represent InternetNZ. The
first working group meeting was on 4 December and Colin’s report on this
meeting is attached for Councils information.
Sibling Organisations
Councillors probably already know MED has completed an RFP
process to engage a consultant to create an implementation plan which indicates
merging of ICT-NZ, High-Growth and the Digital Strategy Advisory Group, into
what is hoped could be the start of an umbrella organisation for the ICT
industry and community in NZ.
Reference material indicates the desired model for the
umbrella group to emulate the Intellect-UK model. Given Intellect-UK is
primarily a trade association, it is difficult to see the similarity to the
proposed “all of industry” and “all of community” model for NZ being either
successful or useful.
I attended the ICT-NZ board meeting on 23 November. Their
next board meeting is scheduled for 14 December, the date of the Council
meeting.
On 22 November a meeting of representatives of InternetNZ,
TUANZ, NZ Computer Society, Women in Technology, ALGIM, GOVIS and Unlimited
Potential occurred at InternetNZ for general discussions on how these and other
ICT groups in New Zealand may be better able to collaborate. This meeting had
been scheduled initially some months ago but was deferred due to the departure
of Doug White from NZCS – so it is stressed that this meeting was not a
knee-jerk reaction to the MED announcement, but part of our ongoing plan to
engage with sibling organisations on these issues. This group will meet again
in February and many other identified ICT groups will be invited to participate
also.
Ernie Newman and myself are continuing discussions on how
InternetNZ and TUANZ might collaborate more closely on a range of operational
items.
NZNOG
InternetNZ will provide administrative support to the
NZNOG08 conference and we have opened a sub bank account for use by NZNOG and
we are currently taking registrations and processing payments on their behalf.
We have arranged to transfer our $10,000 sponsorship contribution to the NOG
sub account also. Our normal bank signatories will be required to sign off
batches for payments for the NOG conference, upon authorisation by the NOG
organizers.
ISPANZ
Following discussions with ISPANZ we have agreement that
InternetNZ will continue to provide secretariat and communications support to
ISPANZ for the next year, on the same basis as this year, with Richard Wood
being the primary point of interaction.
Netsafe
Netsafe are relocating from their Queen Street office, to
Newmarket. While InternetNZ will still have a space at the new office, it will
make it a less useful arrangement given the new locations distance from hotels
and many of our stakeholders offices. We may have to consider taking on a small
office in downtown Auckland in due course.
Netsafe and Global Knowledge Partnership have asked
InternetNZ for support in establishing a Netsafe operation in Samoa. CSL (the
ccTLD Manager for .ws) will provide the space for housing the operation in
Samoa, and support services. Netsafe NZ will mentor the Samoan operation in its
early days. GKP are providing cash input of US$15,000. InternetNZ has been
requested to consider funding the project. I would ask Council to consider
matching the GKP offer, with the amount being consumed from the special project
fund.
TCF / Peering
Murray Milner and myself attended the TCF meeting on Friday
7 December, presenting the outcomes of the peering groups work. The feedback
from TCF was somewhat positive, and I have agreed that we would allow the TCF
an extension of time to comment on the report.
TCF / ENUM
The TCF have sought further extension to the previously
agreed deferment of discussions on joint INZ / TCF ENUM policy development. I
have agreed that while we all have considerable logjams on issues relating to
telecommunications regulatory issues ahead of us, that we agree to a further
deferment until 4th quarter 2008.
I have entered into discussions with a telecommunications
provider who already has deployed carrier ENUM internally, and we will meet in
the new year to discuss the possibility of a joint user ENUM trial.
NZ Bankers Association
I attended the NZBA Internet Fraud Forum on 4 December. InternetNZ is participating in the CyberStorm
II project, and CCIP presented on the events leading up to the test day
scheduled in March next year. Stuart
Anderson from the DNC office is the InternetNZ representative on the Cyberstorm
group.
Also of interest was the attendance of Rob Hunter and Toni
Demetriou, who are the DIA investigators for anti-spam compliance. Both are
ex-police and their unit seems to be established strongly along the lines
InternetNZ had expected for the legislative enforcement agency.
Membership
As at 6 December 2007 our membership was:
Fellows 14
Individual 77
Professional Individual 46
Small Organisation 34
Large Organisation 7
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Total membership 178
Staffing
Jordan Carter will be back in New Zealand next week.
Isabel Carberry’s resignation is effective on 21 December 2007.
Sandra Glasgow has been contracted as Accounting Technician.
Laura Turnbull has been employed to the receptionist position and is due to commence next week.
The InternetNZ office will close on 21 December and re-open
on 7 January, with all staff taking annual leave for the non-statutory holidays
during this two week period. I will be on call and on email for anything urgent
that arises.
InternetNZ Accounts
The InternetNZ and DNC accounts are finally taking useful
shape after an extremely busy and efficient 3 weeks since Sandra’s engagement
as Accounting Technician. There were a large number of year end accruals from
31 March 2007 that had not been reversed into the current years P&L, which
was indicating that we were running very close to budget for our year to date
expenses. However, after reversal of these accruals, and correction to a number
of coding errors, it appears we are running comfortably within budget, with our
year to date net result at 31 October being $191,256 below budget.
I would like to discuss a number of issues relating to our
accounts “in committee” with Council at the meeting.
International Commitments
I will probably not attend the ICANN Delhi meeting in mid
February, but will attend part of APRICOT and the associated APTLD Annual
Meeting in Taiwan in late February.
The October Bangkok APTLD meeting was well attended and the
full programme of presentations is at www.aptld.org/bangkokoctober2007.htm.
The focus on the meeting was the continuing work on the fast track proposal for
IDNs for ccTLDs. The meeting communiqué is attached to this report and contains
all the salient points.
ICANN Los Angeles was an interesting meeting, with two
critical points for our society and New Zealand. Firstly, was the signing of the
exchange of letters between InternetNZ and ICANN, and copies of the letters are
attached. Secondly was the appointment of Peter Dengate Thrush as chairman of
ICANN, an excellent achievement., and a testament to the education received by
Peter when he was chairman of InternetNZ! I believe we should formally
acknowledge and congratulate Peter on this appointment.
The ccNSO Council meeting minutes linked at http://ccnso.icann.org/ contain an excellent
summary of ICANNs ccNSO meetings at Los Angeles.
The IGF meeting in Rio de Janeiro was the most controversial
in this series of international meetings attended by me. The Brazilian
Government were able to have issues relating to ICANN, the US Government and
control of the Internet root reinserted on the agenda in several sessions,
under the guise of “Critical Internet Resources”. There were some calls for
action on the ongoing issues to some Governments, namely “the US Government
should relinquish its role as sole authoriser of the IANA database, and ICANN
is not the appropriate body to control the root. The ICANN board and staff, and
large numbers of its constituency members were present at the meeting (for
example, possibly 80 ccTLD people in attendance) and it was most useful to
observe ICANN and its constituents stepping up to defend the ICANN model, and
also to invite greater participation from the grumpy governments within ICANN. While
the US Government was well represented, it was able to keep a low profile
during these debates, as ICANN was adequately defending itself in this forum.
It occurs to me that it probably is useful to encourage the “Critical Internet
Resources” item to remain on the IGF agenda, as it seems to provide a release
valve for those Governments who still seem to have an axe to grind relating to
the ICANN / US Government role in the Internet root.
I am attending the Global Knowledge Partnership GK3 meeting
in Kuala Lumpur in the days leading up to this Council meeting and will provide
a verbal update to Council. A large contingent of more than 20 Kiwis are
attending this meeting.
I do not intend attending the ICANN February 2008 meeting,
due to the many other issues facing us at that time, but intend to attend the
APTLD meeting in conjunction with APRICOT in late February, which will likely
be my only remaining international trip this financial year.
Renaming
Last
Council meeting I reported on issues relating to our Society name. Our legal
name is The Internet Society of New Zealand Incorporated, and in recent years
we have adopted the brand name InternetNZ. However we are often referred to as
“Internet New Zealand”, and we still suffer from sometimes being confused as a
branch of The Internet Society (ISOC). Council’s response indicated an
enthusiasm to proceed with a change of name for the Society.
To
this end, I have taken the liberty of registering the domain names
internetnewzealand.co.nz, .net.nz and .org.nz and re-pointed these domain names
to our main website www.internetnz.net.nz. I have also registered the company name
“Internet New Zealand Limited, on the basis that no-one will be able to
incorporate a society with that name without the approval of a company with the
same name. This will enable us to proceed to public consultation on the name change
without fear of hijack.
I
therefore propose that Council agree that members be consulted on the name
change, during the January members consultations, and on the members list. If
there are no objections from members, we should proceed with the name change in
February 2008.
Recommendations:
1.
That the Executive Directors Report be
received.
2.
That members be consulted on the possible
change of name of the Society during January, with a view to completing the
name change in the current financial year, if members are generally agreed to
the change of name.
3.
That Council approve a contribution of
US$15,000 towards the establishment of the Netsafe Samoa operation, being
funded from the special projects fund and empower the Executive Director to
enter negotiations with the parties to an agreement..
4.
That InternetNZ write to Peter Dengate Thrush
congratulating him on his appointment as Chairman of ICANN.
Keith Davidson
6 December 2007
