ISOC-ZA has announced its intention to implement the proposal for the administration of the .ZA ccTLD as proposed by the ISOC-ZA drafting committee (DC). The DC was an initiative put together by ISOC-ZA at the request of the current .ZA administrator.

It calls for the formation of a public benefit company (Section 21 Company) to administer and set policy for the .ZA namespace. The resolution was passed at ISOC-ZA's year 2000 AGM. A copy can be found at http://www.isoc.org.za/resolution.txt.

The proposal currently has the backing of ISOC-ZA (http://www.isoc.org.za), ISPA (http://www.ispa.org.za), the current .ZA administrator (http://www2.frd.ac.za/uninet/zadomains.html), the South African Department of Communications (http://docweb.pwv.gov.za), as well as various other industry players and associations.

The DC process involved public comment periods and various public meetings and presentations. The original terms of reference (TOR) can be found at http://www.isoc.org.za/tor.html. As per the TOR, numerous public submissions were received and considered. These submissions have been incorporated into the proposal which can be found at http://www.isoc.org.za/dc.

The DC committee was drawn from a wide spectrum of the South African Internet community, coming from various disciplines, including technical, legal, social and business backgrounds. Various DC members have attended ICANN meetings, and contributed in the international DNS arena, as well as making local contributions to the e-commerce legislative process, the telecommunications policy process, the MAP ICT Forum and various other ICT related initiatives.

The implementation involves the following timescales:

Call for interested parties to assist the DC in the implementation - complete.

Inaugural formation meeting of Namespace - 31 August 2001.

Namespace operational and .ZA re-delegation - September 2001

The Inaugural meeting will follow the ISPA AGM.

Further information and progress will be detailed at http://www.namespace.org.za as it becomes available.

The ISOC-ZA drafting committee can be reached at dc@isoc.org.za.

Contacts:

William Stucke

ISOC-ZA Chairman Chair@isoc.org.za Tel: +27 11 465-0700

Mike Lawrie

Current .ZA Administrator mlawrie@apies.nrf.ac.za Tel: +27 12 481-4148