Dear All,

 I welcome pknic positive initiative of un-blocking PakHost IP as of yesterday.  They have requested to remove some content from whois.net.pk website including all pknic registrar/reseller names which we will do in a good faith.

Moving forward, here is a model which I have been thinking about as a new .PK ccTLD structure.  It is open for discussion:

1.            A non-profit Governing Body (Board)

2.            Separation of Adminstration and Technical part

3.            Separation of Registry and Registrar

4.            A true Panel of advisory group

5.            Dispute Resolution

1. A non-profit Governing Body/Board

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This Board should be of minimum 8-10 professionals with representation from every relevant private/public/government sector including ISPs, Universities and other national identities. We should keep 1 or 2 seats reserved for non-IT Pakistani pros.  The board will monitor the registry performance, listen any escalated public issues and approves registry budget and policies. 

2. Separation of Admin and Tech Part

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The Board will choose with majority 2 ccTLD Managers (one Admin and one Tech) for a specified period (may be 5 years).  Both managers name and contact info will be listed with ICANN/IANA and they must be available in Pakistan for public meetings.  Any Pakistani citizen can apply who qualifies certain criteria pre-set by the Board.  ccTLD Manager can only serve up to 2 terms at the max.  One manager cannot keep both seats. Admin ccTLD Manager will post the budget, domain statistics and other educational and public awareness related information on the website while Technical ccTLD Manager will take care of tech issues.

3. Separation of Registry and Registrar

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Registry cannot be a registrar and hence cannot sell domain names directly.  Further, both ccTLD Managers cannot run any kind of .PK domain names related business which he/she can take advantage of his position.  Board can disqualify and even terminate any ccTLD manager who violates the rules and policies by simple majority of voting.

4. A Panel of advisory group

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This panel membership should be open to any Pakistani with right to make recommendations and vote in favor or against any polcies made by the Board.  Advisory group will have access to each other emails and contact information.  May be we should consider some sort of public forum and/or blogs.

5. Dispute Resolution

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There should be more than one different groups of pros who can resolve any domain dispute issues by Arbitration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbitration) and charges nominal fees to cover the cost.

Operational Suggestions

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1. Domain prices should be fixed and equal to all registrars, approved by the Board after considering the over-all budget.

2. Some basic criteria should be made which is used to qualify of being a registrar.

3. Foreign companies (like GoDaddy, ENOM, etc.) ONLY can apply for .PK Registrarship if they maintain at least one service level contract with any local Pakistani ISP or Software House.

4. For technical part, we should consider registry outsourcing to Afilias or NeuLevel with conditions as:

                a. they must provide at least 2 internship to Pakistani Students on merit after every 6 months

                b. They must employ at least 2 full time staff members from Pakistan

5. While Primary DNS servers could be in USA and/or Canada, there must be at least one secondary DNS server in Asia (Malaysia or Singapore) and one Secondary or Caching DNS server within Pakistan

Let's discuss about this for a few days and then compile our first draft.  Please feel free to discuss (positively) adding or removing or modifying any item.

I also suggest, in the initial setup of Board/Governing Body, we should give the both founders of .PK Mr. Ashar Nisar and Imran Anwar lifetime or for a specific time period membership at equal level without voting, if they are interested.  Any thought?

It is going to be a little lengthy process and we need patience, consistency, determination and courage.  We might face some major resistance from some minority folks who will not want any kind of development in this area due to personal interests.  Our aim is not to attack anyone but keep doing our job and time will prove who is right and who is wrong.

Also at some time, we may need to take this topic to a separate new forum or discussion group.  Because it is going to be a lengthy process and others on the forum who may not be interested in this topic may get bored.  This is just a thought otherwise if everybody is inetersted, then no need.

I have talked to Afilias to submit their official proposal with pricing model and will ask the same to NeuLevel.  If anyone would like to recommend some more firms, please do so.  As many bids we can get, it is always good. The firms must have international repute and technically sound, already running at least one registry successfully on EPP RFCs compliant platform.

We need to get the final draft ready as early as possible and need some founder volunteers.  Salman Ansari, Badar Khushnood, Tariq Mustafa, Faisal Khan or Shahzad Ahmad, any one would offer to take a lead on this???  Any one from PASHA or ISPAK is also welcome to join. I cannot name each and every individual, so please consider this open invitation at all. 

We also have to come up with a name of this new not-for-profit Governing Body.  Any suggestions are welcome.

Best,

-Khalil Ahmad

CEO & Chairman

PakNIC (Private) Limited
ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar

6-A, Aziz Ave. Canal Bank, Gulberg-V, Lahore 54000, PAKISTAN
Phone: +92 (42) 587-1197 & 98 | Fax: +92 (42) 577-5541