Given the impending expiration of procurement contract awarded to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) in September 30, 2011, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) of the United States Department of Commerce, has issued notice requesting for comments on IANA functions. Internet stakeholders have until tomorrow, March 31 to make their input.
IANA is the administrative arm of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) which manages the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and Domain Name System (DNS) of the global internet community.
ITRealms Online gathered that NTIA is issuing this Notice of Inquiry (NOI) to seek public comment to inform the procurement process, leading to the renewal of award to IANA functions contract or otherwise.
Hitherto, the IANA functions were initially performed under a series of contracts between the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the University of Southern California (USC), as part of a research project known as the Terranode Network Technology (TNT). And following the end of TNT project and the DARPA/USC contract, the United States Government recognized the need for the continued performance of the IANA functions as vital to the stability and correct functioning of the Internet.
Hence, in January 1999, NTIA initiated a procurement process to fulfill this need by awarding IANA functions contract to ICANN in February 2000, and subsequently in March 2001, March 2004, and August 2005. The current contract expires September 30, 2011.
“We take this opportunity to ask a detailed set of questions on this topic as this is the first time NTIA has undertaken a comprehensive review of the IANA functions contract since the award of the first contract in 2000,” part of the public statement endorsed by the United States Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information, Mr. Lawrence E. Strickling recently.
He explained in the notice that part of the contracted functions include that IANA assist in the transition from the DARPA contract with USC to ICANN, in 1998, ICANN entered into an agreement with the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) for transition of certain functions, responsibilities, assets, and personnel to ICANN.
It was further gathered that the current contract has an option to extend the performance period for an additional six months.
“If necessary, NTIA will exercise this option in order to complete the contract procurement process,” part of this notice indicated in the Contract Clause 1.5 of the current deal.
The assistant secretary of state pointed out that domain name system (DNS) is a critical component of the Internet that works like an address book, allowing users to reach websites using easy-to-understand domain names rather than the numeric network server addresses, in additional to retrieving information on the Internet.
“It is a hierarchical and globally distributed system in which distinct servers maintain the detailed information for their local domains and pointers for how to navigate the hierarchy to retrieve information from other domains,” he said.
He emphasised that the accuracy, integrity, and availability of the information supplied by the DNS are essential to the operation of most systems, services, or applications that use the Internet.
Essential to the DNS is the performance of the IANA functions and at a summary level, the IANA functions consist of the coordination of the assignment of technical Internet protocol parameters; the administration of certain responsibilities associated with Internet DNS root zone management; the allocation of Internet numbering resources; and other services related to the management of the .ARPA and .INT top-level domains.
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