Hello All,
3) On July 27th, VeriSign cut the batch pool connections from 30 to 20 per Registrar.
4) On August 20th, VeriSign cut the batch pool connections from 20 to 10 per Registrar.
There is clearly something wrong with the current regulatory model, where as new industry participants are added, the wholesale supplier reduces service to the existing industry participants that have built substantial businesses over a period of time. What would happen, if as new internet service providers (ISPs) were added, the major telcos reduced the bandwidth available for the existing well established ISPs? Or every time a new airline wanted to access an airport, it was given the same number of landing slots and airline gates as the other established airlines (with a drop in service for each existing airline)? There are two quite separate problems here that are being lumped together. (1) a method to resolve contention when many registrars want to get the same name at the same time (subject of a separate email) (2) a regulatory model that provides all registrars with an equal amount of bandwidth at the same price, regardless of the size of their operations The regulatory model should allow equitable access of resources to registrars, so that all registrars can offer an equivalent level of service to their customers. Right now a new entrant with a few customers, can provide a much higher level of service, than an established industry player with many customers. In regulated telecommunications industries, generally a maximum price is set to allow new entrants to purchase bandwidth equitably (although large customers can get bulk discounts), and different industry participants get enough upstream capacity to meet the needs of their customers. The original regulatory model was appropriate at a time of less than 50 registrars, and when there was one registrar with substantial market dominance. The market is now much different. There is no single dominant registrar (although the top 10 account for around two thirds of the market), and there are over 300 registrars. This would mean that most of these 300 registrars would account for less than 0.1% of the market. Thus the regulatory model needs to mature to scale for a market with potentially thousands of small registrars, and a small number of larger providers. This is not dissimilar to the ISP market in most countries. Given that ICANN is considering new tlds, and re-considering the registry agreements that will govern these TLDs - now is the time to decide strategically where we are headed. Right now I think some parts of a registry's operations are over-regulated, and other parts are under-regulated. Regards, Bruce Tonkin