*.TO Domain Name Registration
Samiuela Loni Vea Taufa
The Top Level Domain (tld) for Tonga is TO. Most government websites have standardised on using the *.to type of domain name as it directly links one with the country Tonga.
On the other hand, I heard that one of the reasons the Tonga-Broadcasting commission went away from tbc.to to tonga-broadcasting.com was because they didn't want to be associated with the *.to political discussions ?
Anyhooo.
There are political and technical definitions of the *.to DNS. It is good to get a view of this groups perceptions since at least it can be proposed to Government that dialogue has been given on this matter by sane individuals.
Politics.
TO as a TLD has been marketed as representative of our Sovereign State, the Kingdom of Tonga.
It is currently administered by a company with historical connections with our King. How much the company earns or does not earn is not public information but there are a lot of wild guesses without any sound basis.
What is the governance question for this arrangement?
Technical.
http://www.iana.org/root-whois/to.htm
TO is a nomeclature chosen a long time ago by ITU for assigning shortened letters for individual countries in their 'network' of telephony services. ITU chose not to copyright the use of these two letter combinations and were subsequently adapted by ISO and the people who were putting the Internet together.
TO is a standard for communications. TO may stand for Tonga, depending on who you're talking with.
TO stands for Tonga to the ISO, and ICANN the internet numbers people.
TN stands for Tonga to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), FIPS U.S. Government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. TO to them stands for TOGO.
TO is part of the standards for 2 letter representations, there are also 3 letter and 4 letter representations of countries.
Currency Three letter designation. To designate currency, ISO standardised with the first letter of the currency "P" to the Two letter country name "TO" and we have "TOP" as the designation of our currency.
Tonga TO + Pa'anga P ==> TOP
United States of America US + Dollar D ==> USD
Fiji FJ + Dollar D ==> FJD
Australia AU + Dollar D ==> AUD
But there are more than ISO standards for names. Tonga is referenced as TGA by the IOC, and FIFA but we are TON to the ISO-3Alpha and the UN.
In the three digit classification, Tonga is designated by ITU as 676 (our telephone country code) but ISO/UN says we are 776.
Can Tonga Own the equipment and organisation to service *.TO domain names?
I don't know.RFC
2870 - Root Name Server Operational Requirements
Doesn't seem to be THAT difficult ?
Anyone got the time to cost out how much it
would cost to configure something that more than meets the minimum
standard in the above document ?
Could this be a fast-track, quick-win project ?
-- Samiuela LV Taufa sa...@nomoa.com -or- samt...@gmail.com www.nomoa.com; www.tongatapu.net.to Ph: +676()62-717 Fax: +676()24-099
Samiuela LV Taufa
1st.
It is a technical issue, we need to present
a) clear understanding of the technical requirements of taking over *.to
b) the costs to manage *.to
c) the strategy for achieving and maintaining the skills to manage *.to
When we can legitimately cover all of the above 3 issues, then we can go towards the
2nd.
Political issue.
ICANN has wavered on the ownership issue of country domain names. I do not recall having ever heard a statement from them that Sovereign States own the domains. Nonetheless, I have read that ITU have pushed with WSIS that Governments should own the rights to country domain names.
It is just a matter of approaching the King with the above technical support, and asking him when Eric & Eric can transfer to the Tongan entity the management and marketing of *.TO.
At which point, we'd have to meet the other technical issue of determining the length of contracts for various domain names.
ciao,
Sam T.
aso...@pmo.gov.to wrote the following on 11/29/2007 6:00 PM:
Sam Thanks for raising this important issue. The Department has many issues to resolve and this being one. Can you guess the other? What are your views on this? Malo Alfred
TO is a nomeclature chosen a long time ago by ITU for assigning shortened letters for individual countries in their 'network' of telephony services. ITU chose not to copyright the use of these two letter combinations and were subsequently adapted by ISO and the people who were putting the Internet together. TO is a standard for communications. TO may stand for Tonga, depending on who you're talking with. TO stands for Tonga to the ISO, and ICANN the internet numbers people. TN stands for Tonga to NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), FIPS U.S. Government for geographical data processing in many publications, such as the CIA World Factbook. TO to them stands for TOGO. TO is part of the standards for 2 letter representations, there are also 3 letter and 4 letter representations of countries. /Currency Three letter designation/. To designate currency, ISO standardised with the first letter of the currency "P" to the Two letter country name "TO" and we have "TOP" as the designation of our currency. Tonga TO + Pa'anga P ==> TOP United States of America US + Dollar D ==> USD Fiji FJ + Dollar D ==> FJD Australia AU + Dollar D ==> AUD But there are more than ISO standards for names. Tonga is referenced as TGA by the IOC, and FIFA but we are TON to the ISO-3Alpha and the UN. In the three digit classification, Tonga is designated by ITU as 676 (our telephone country code) but ISO/UN says we are 776. Can Tonga Own the equipment and organisation to service *.TO domain names? I don't know. RFC 2870 - Root Name Server Operational Requirements <http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2870.html>
Doesn't seem to be THAT difficult ? Anyone got the time to cost out how much it would cost to configure something that more than meets the minimum standard in the above document ? Could this be a fast-track, quick-win project ? -- Samiuela LV Taufa sa...@nomoa.com -or- samt...@gmail.com www.nomoa.com; www.tongatapu.net.to
Ph: +676()62-717 Fax: +676()24-099 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.
Havea Hikule'o Fonua
I have heard that the Ministry of Finance, IT Team, had already made an attempt to control & manage the “.gov.to” and it looked annoying to his majesty. Saia & Pauli, if this is OK with you guys please share with us as I believe this is the right time to help Sam & DoC pushing this idea forward.
However, I agree with Sam’s proposal to tackling it into two separate phases but I think it is better to do the second first. The decision to handover the TO DNS to Government is the hardest part and it is very important to know the YES and WHEN instructions (- remember technology is evolving in a faster trend).
Regards
Havea
Samiuela LV Taufa
I wont prejudice your reading, and I haven't seen anything that I can recall that rebuts the research shown in the article.
Where do we go now, in light of the information above.
ciao,
Sam T
Samiuela LV Taufa
To clear the air on what is required to operate a ccTLD (as opposed
to the more difficult political solution,) the official word from above
(ICANN) is as follows:
http://www.iana.org/cctld/specifications-policies-cctlds-01apr02.htm
a. Be connected and have someone available on email for tech and
admin issues, ditto for the "Sponsoring Organization."
b. Do the job you said you were going to do. Seriously.
c. 5 Technical papers need to be adhered to:
* Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1034.txt
* DOMAIN NAMES - IMPLEMENTATION AND SPECIFICATION
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1035.txt
* DNS Encoding of Network Names and Other Types
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc1101.txt
* Clarifications to the DNS Specification
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2181.txt
* Selection and Operation of Secondary DNS Servers -
http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2182.txt
d. Tagged domain names are reserved (having lables with hyphens in the
third and fourth character position like ab--efghijk)
Well, that wasn't too technically out of reach ?
Dedicated to preserving the central coordinating
functions of the global
Internet for the public good.
Technical Specifications and Policies for ccTLD Operations
The following summarizes some of the IANA's technical expectations for operation of ccTLDs by ccTLD managers. It is incorporated as Attachment G to ccTLD Sponsorship Agreements for the triangular situation:
1. Connectivity. There must be Internet Protocol (IP) connectivity to the nameservers and electronic mail connectivity to the entire management, staff, and contacts of the Sponsoring Organization. There must be an administrative contact and a technical contact for the Delegated ccTLD.
2. Operational Capability. The ccTLD managers must do a satisfactory job of operating the DNS service for the Delegated ccTLD. Duties such as the assignment of domain names, delegation of subdomains and operation of nameservers must be done with technical competence. This includes keeping the IANA advised of the status of the domain, responding to requests in a timely manner, and operating the database with accuracy, robustness, and resilience. Because of its responsibilities for the DNS, the IANA must be granted access to all TLD zones on a continuing basis. There must be a primary and a secondary nameserver that have IP connectivity to the Internet and can be easily checked via access to zones for operational status and database accuracy by the IANA.
3. RFC Compliance. The Delegated ccTLD must be operated in compliance with the following Requests for Comments (RFCs): 1034, 1035, 1101, 2181, 2182. In clarification of the statement of host-name rules in these RFCs, all domain names in the Delegated ccTLD (excluding subdomain names under domains registered to third parties) shall comply with the following syntax in augmented Backus-Naur Form (BNF) as described in RFC2234:
dot = %x2E ; "."
dash = %x2D ; "-"
alpha = %x41-5A / %x61-7A ; A-Z / a-z
digit = %x30-39 ; 0-9
ldh = alpha / digit / dash
id-prefix = alpha / digit
label = id-prefix [*61ldh id-prefix]
sldn = label dot label; not to exceed 254 characters
hostname = *(label dot) sldn; not to exceed 254 characters
4. Tagged Domain Names. In addition, domain names in the Delegated ccTLD (excluding subdomain names under domains registered to third parties) having labels with hyphens in the third and fourth character positions (e.g., "rq--1k2n4h4b") are reserved from initial (i.e. other than renewal) registration, except as authorized by ICANN policy or by written exception from ICANN.
(1 April 2002)