East Africa Community countries' domain critical Internet resource

By Esther Nakkazi

Does the East African Community (EAC) need a ccTLD? Ideally the EAC domain name or ccTLD would be .EA, but that was taken, now the only choice left is .EAC.

This was the first session of the second day at the third East Africa Internet Governance Forum (EAIGF) in Kampala from 11^th to 13^th August 2010.

Participants at the EAIGF debated the idea of establishing .EAC and ways of strengthening national ccTLDs, critical resources for EAC countries.  The ccTLDs for Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda are .UG, .KE, .TZ, .BI and .RW.

But now as the EA countries become integrated under the EAC, they need to not only have a common market but to find ways to promote businesses under the .EAC.  

In 2004, the EAC considered establishing the .EA domain name for the region unfortunately it was not available. The .EA an ISO 3166-1 "reserved code element" was already reserved by the World Customs Organization for the free ports of Ceuta and Melilla (Spanish territories, pre-Spanish Morocco independence 1956)

However, the .EAC, which is available could be created under the new generic gTLD at the ICANN, said Adam Peake from GLOCOM at the third EAIGF.

“Ways to strengthen East Africa's ccTLDs is critical to the well being of the Internet in the region,” said Mr. Peake.

ccTLDs or domain names are an essential part of national information infrastructure and they are the identifiers denoting a country or territory on the Internet. They are a country's virtual location and brand.
Status of East Africa Community countries’ ccTLDs

Joe Kiragu, the administrative manager .KE described a country’s ccTLD as a country’s virtual real estate, therefore, ‘it should be developed for the benefit of all and governance issues are paramount.’

The Kenya .KE is a multi-stakeholder model adopted by KENIC and its efficiency has ensured increased domain names registration. Kenya also has local nodes for TLD’s root server .com and .net.

Participants at the third EAIGF in Kampala, Uganda 

Charles Musisi the executive director Computer Frontiers International (CFI) also the custodian of the Uganda .UG wondered ‘if it is not broken, why even attempt to fix it’?

He described the .UG ccTLD as ‘sound and stable’ with over 1,000 domain names registered now under a proven competent and knowledgeable team for over 10 years now.

Ambrose Ruyooka commissioner ministry of ICT said a working group has already been put in place to come up with a management policy for the .UG but the government is not interested in taking it away from Mr. Musisi.

“We do not involved in domain name disputes, that could be a role for local arbitrators,” said Musisi of the possibility to involve other stakeholders in the management of the .UG ccTLD. However, the Uganda national IGF agreed that the government should be involved.

The Tanzania .TZ which is still a young organization and came a ‘little too late’ than the rest in the region as described by Sunday Richard of the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) did not have much to be talked about.

Rwanda is in the final stages of deregulation of .RW ccTLD. It was originally hosted in Sweden but the government has managed to contact the private owner and take over regulation.

It will have a multi sectoral model of management and a bottom up process, but the legal fraternity will be courted to join it more because of intellectual property rights involved, said Geoffrey Kayonga the CEO RICTA at the EAIGF in Kampala.

The same private owner hosts Burundi .BI ccTLD in Sweden; the same one as with Rwanda but the country is now considering restructuring of the organization of management.

“It will not be a re-delegation but a restructuring of the organization,” said Victor Ciza from AfriRegister.

Participants at the third EAIGF in Kampala, Uganda

Does the East Africa Community (EAC) need .EAC?

“Do we understand the requirement and expectations of .EAC? Or should we look for uniformity or each country ccTLD should have a unique system even though we are in the EAC,” asked Alice Munyua, the EAIGF convener.

“If a ccTLD is not utilized what does the country miss, are these resources really critical worth going to war for in a critical sense?,” wondered Sofia Beleke of .AFRICA.

“Who wants .EAC and where shall we end up. Next will be .COMESA when we already have .AFRICA. Why don’t we just strengthen what we have,” wondered Vincent Mugaba from Uganda Christian University.

But the participants agreed that EAC needed .EAC for branding, identification and promotion of branding.