In recent days some attention is being paid to usher in
an era of broad band internet connectivity in India. While the availability of
broad band is expected to be of immense use to the development of E-Business and
also better communication and management of business in general, it is necessary
to focus on another aspect of I-Governance which needs to be addressed in
tandem, namely getting allocation of the required "Domain Name and Number
Space".
We must remember that we are in the threshold of the IPV 6
implementation. ICANN has already announced its readiness. At a meeting in Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia, this week, ICANN, which is in charge of allocating IP
addresses, said that it has added the latest version of Internet protocol
version 6 (IPv6) to the Internet's Domain Name Servers (DNS) root server system.
This system provides almost unlimited source of IP addresses as against the 4.3
billion addresses available in the present system of which USA cornered nearly
70 % and left only 2 million (0.05 %) to India. (Who
is record indicates about 3 million IP allocations as of a recent date)
Makers of operating systems for various types of devices are also beginning
to address the issue of IP address depletion.
Microsoft, whose operating system runs 80 percent of the world's computers,
has adopted the new addressing scheme in its Windows XP operating system, but
it's switched off by default. The latest version of Apple's operating system is
also IPv6-compatible.
The open-source community has also begun incorporating IPv6 into its own
operating systems.
In the convergent economy, every internet enabled device
including the mobile phone or the intelligent house hold gadget needs to connect
to Internet, the non availability of IP addresses will choke the internet
connectivity. Despite availability of bandwidth therefore the system may still
choke.
For countries like India which did not get its due share of
IP addresses commensurate with the population (16 % of the Global Population),
it is imperative to move onto the V6 system at the earliest.
Already, Japan and Korea are reported to have adopted
IPV6 to their country code domain systems. France is said to be preparing for
the same. India also needs to address this system at the earliest.
.IN domain Name
The discussion on the IPV 6 will not be complete without
discussing the Indian approach to the Country Code domain name system monitored
by CDAC Mumbai (Formerly NCST). As of 10th June 2004 to which statistics have
been updated on the website (http://domain.ncst.ernet.in/statistics.php) as on
today, August 6 2004, only 6430 .IN addresses have been registered. This is
against 29 million active addresses world over with more than 48000 new
registrations happenning each day in .com extension.
The following statistics from
http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/ reveals that there are already
866,519 .US addresses despite most US users using .com address and that .US
registration is only of recent origin compared to .IN address.
| |
| Domain
Counts |
| |
Daily Changes (last 24hrs) |
|
| Active |
|
Deleted |
|
On-Hold |
|
New |
|
Deleted |
|
Transfered |
|
TLD |
| 29,711,184 |
|
16,387,004 |
|
346,746 |
|
48,701 |
|
19,684 |
|
36,065 |
|
.COM |
| 4,840,899 |
|
3,178,345 |
|
63,376 |
|
3,810 |
|
1,600 |
|
2,424 |
|
.NET |
| 3,062,834 |
|
1,909,240 |
|
33,401 |
|
3,832 |
|
1,836 |
|
3,001 |
|
.ORG |
| 1,222,442 |
|
725,543 |
|
1,274 |
|
1,239 |
|
534 |
|
835 |
|
.INFO |
| 1,015,005 |
|
334,282 |
|
1,021 |
|
1,278 |
|
588 |
|
737 |
|
.BIZ |
| 866,519 |
|
446,619 |
|
490 |
|
1,233 |
|
519 |
|
928 |
|
.US |
|
| 40,718,883 |
|
22,833,818 |
|
446,308 |
|
60,093 |
|
24,761 |
|
43,990 |
|
Total |
|
Last Updated 8/5/2004 |
|
|
|
It is interesting to note that
China has more than 382,000 domain names with .cn extension indicating the
enormous efforts that China has taken to promote the use of .cn domain names.
The lack of .IN registrations arise principally because NCST
has not been able to market the .IN domain names adequately. The procedures are
complicated and unfriendly and the cost is too high.
There is therefore a need to shift the responsibility of .IN
domain name management to a new organization if this system has to succeed.
Representation in ICANN/WSIS:
Though at present ICANN is in charge of defining the domain
name and space policies, it is expected that soon the responsibility will shift
to the control of an UN led body under the WSIS.
India needs to ensure that it has a reasonable voice in such
forums.
In this connection it is essential that India ensures
representation in the ICANN and ensure that its interests are protected.
Presently ICANN NomCom is in the process of receiving
nominations and the Indian Government should explore if Indian interests have
been nominated for any of the committees.
The last date for the current nominations is AUGUST 25 2004.
I urge MCIT to take some urgent steps to get nominations
from India reach ICANN in time and then work towards further involvement in the
IPV 6 implementation as also overhaul the Indian domain name system.
Naavi
August 06 2004
Related Articles:
ICANN Decisions at Kuala Lumpur
US Shrugs off World's Address Shortage. Article at News.com
