[registrars] My comments - Verisign batch pool issue

[Bhavin Turakhia]

Hi all,

Was out for 2 weeks and therefore unable to comment. Here is my brief
statements

* the real problem is not verisign getting pounded. I don't think that ever
was the issue. The number of connections were reduced from 40 per registrar
to 10 per registrar in the last 8 months. There is statistical data from
reliable that shows that there were more commands being sent to the batch
pool in Jan 2004 than there are as of today. Verisign can clearly reduce the
number of connections from 10 to 5 or even 1 and reduce their load by 1/40th
of the orignal load. The orignal system supported 100+ registrars at 40
connections. At 1 connection per registrar they should be able to support
4000 (I don't think we will reach that number ever considering the new
NSI/TUCOWS model as such discourages any phantom creds now)

* the real problem is phantom creds - ie registrars who accredited simply
for batch pool access. The two solutions proposed by verisign to a certain
extent take care of that issue, but the solutions are not effective

* Solution 1 will render ICANN ending up with less than 50% of the 3.8
million they orignally anticipated collecting. This means in some indirect
way we shall bear the brunt of that, or ICANN shall

* Solution 1 also gives more chances to larger registrars, thus being
unequal

* Solution 2 to my mind as everyone points out can actually be worse - since
it will bring about a status quo amongst the larger players to such an
extent that noone except verisign will make the money


* I do not think either of the solutions should be implemented. Infact here
are the ONLY solutions that make sense -


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MY PROPOSED SOLUTIONS
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Solution 1: DO NOTHING
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* This is the simplest solution and it works. The market has considerably
changed since this debate came up.

* Firstly most registrars may shortly not allow names to expire judging NSI
and TUCOWS' latest move. Infact I am quite certain of this eventuality - for
various reasons which I will separately discuss. This has already prevented
addtl phantom applications from applying. I will send out some hard data on
this shortly

* Secondly for the ones that already exist the number of names will reduce
considerably

* Thirdly for the ones that exist - verisign can simply reduce the number of
connects to 5 or even 1 and have enuf bandwidth within their existing
infrastructure to not impact them


Solution 2: IMPLEMENT THEIR FIRST SOLUTION WITH SLIGHT MODIFICATIONS
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* If solution 1 is implemented it needs to be fair and at the same time not
jeopardize the ICANN budget. This maybe done as follows

* create a separate pool where ONLY expired domain names maybe registered,
so that both larger or smaller registrars get the same ratio of connect to
this pool

* modify the icann budget such that access to this pool does not fall in the
forgiveness criteria

* some of you may say that this model will not prevent the phantom creds
issue - but I would suggest you to look around. That issue is already
resolved.



ONCE AGAIN ...... It is important to put up an official position on this
one. I wonder (and I am new here ;) ) .... If we should  ballot this. If yes
then I can draft a ballot and send it out, after which we could share the
official results with the concerned parties




Best Regards
Bhavin Turakhia
Founder, CEO and Chairman
DirectI
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