So Where Exactly Is The Comreg Report?

The Irish Communications Regulator (Comreg) were meant to publish a document based on the public feedback they’d received regarding IEDR before the end of October.

It’s now November 1st and there’s no sign of it.

So what happened?

When will we see the document?

Or are we all going to be fobbed off again?

At the moment the IEDR and stakeholders are waiting in limbo.

By Michele Neylon

Michele is founder and managing director of Irish domain registrar and hosting company Blacknight. Michele has been deeply involved in domain and internet policy discussions for more than a decade. He also co-hosts the Technology.ie podcast.

13 comments

  2. John

    I was under the impression that the report was to be based primarily on the public comments.

    Does this mean that Comreg are planning to publish a more comprehensive document that will encompass aspects of the report prepared last year which they are currently refusing to make public?

    Michele

  3. Not sure Michele,
    I think that they will be providing their own commentary or analysis on the issue as well as publishing the submissions. The report will probably be kept confidential. In real terms, I think that ComReg is trying hard to understand the history of .ie ccTLD and trying not to break it. As for what ComReg will propose, I haven’t a clue.

  4. I heard in early November (from ComReg) that they were looking at legal issues. I would think what they are going to publish is the result of their consultation and decisionmaking process, i.e., what they have decided to do and why.

  5. Antoin

    That’s inane. If they take this long to publish a report based on feedback and refuse to publish the external consultants report things do not bode well for their involvement with the IE ccTLD

    Michele

  6. Perhaps ComReg wants to get it right first time. Though it should be interesting to see what emerges from all this. The most dangerous thing is that ComReg could accidentally undo the last few years of .ie growth. However delaying publication may have a bad effect on the industry in that it creates uncertainty.

  7. John

    the longer it is delayed the more it hurts stakeholders.

    At present there is a lot of stuff in the pipeline on the IEDR side that could have a positive impact on the market, but with the lack of movement from Comreg implementation is delayed

    And they won’t get it right first time regardless of what they do!

    Michele

  8. It would be interesting to see what expert advisors they are using, Michele.
    This delay does not benefit the industry and it paralyses IEDR. But if they are looking into the legal aspect of things, they may want to make some modifications to the present structure of .ie ccTLD. But this is just speculation.

  9. The most they can really do is decide to go ahead with what they proposed in the consultation document (which was basically to take a hands-off approach). My own view is that there are big legal and practical problems with what had been proposed by ComReg.

  10. Antoin,
    What problems do you think will emerge with the ComReg adopting a hands-off approach? Again without knowing what Comreg wants to do with the situation, it may want to do somewhat more than adopt a completely hands-off approach. It is still a far cry from the Fagan years. 🙂

  11. Comreg wants to take a hands off approach. That is what is proposed in their consultation document. They are proposing that IEDR, not ComReg is responsibile for coming up with policies and for rule-setting.

    The problem (in my view) is that the legislation requires ComReg to take a hands-on approach. ComReg is given specific powers and responsibility for determining the policy for registration and must exercise those powers itself. It can’t delegate that responsibility wholesale.

    At present, registrations of domains for ‘.ie’ are in a grey area as a result of ComReg’s failure to make regulations.

    The Communications Regulation (Amendment) Act says:

    ‘(2) A person shall not use an ‘.ie’ domain name unless the name is registered in accordance with regulations made under this section.’

    Ther are no regulations, so domains are not being registered in accordance with them and therefore are very likely to turn out to be legally deficient if some problem arises. As a result, it appears that some form of regulations are a legal necessity (in my opinion, the AG’s view may differ). I think the intent of the Act is quite clear – that ComReg, not IEDRL should determine the registration policy.

    ComReg would be very unwise to make regulations (or not) on the basis of who happens to be running or not running the Registry at present.

  12. Antoin

    I don’t honestly think Comreg have the expertise to handle registry policy – unless they were to make it a “free for all”, which wouldn’t be such a bad thing

    Michele

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