For
Immediate Release August 15, 2006 |
Contact: Office of Public Affairs 202-482-7002
|
NTIA AWARDS CONTRACT FOR MANAGEMENT OF
The Commerce Department’s National
Telecommunications and Information Administration today
announced the award of a sole source contract to ICANN
to perform technical functions supporting the Internet
Domain Name system.
The department on February 21, 2006 issued a Request
for Information to conduct market research about whether
there were other qualified entities to perform these
functions.
Based on this research and other information supporting
its continued belief that ICANN (Internet Corporation
for Assigned Name and Numbers) was uniquely qualified
to perform the technical functions that are critical
to the security and stability of the Internet, the
department on May 18, 2006 announced its intention
to award the sole source contract to ICANN.
ICANN has been performing the Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority (IANA) services since 2000. They involve
three interdependent technical coordinating functions
for the Internet domain name and addressing system.
These functions include coordination of the assignment
of technical protocol parameters, administration of
certain responsibilities associated with Internet DNS
root zone management, and allocation of Internet Protocol
Version 4 (IPv4) and Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6)
address space.
The present contract expires on September 30, 2006.
The new contract will become effective on October 1,
2006.
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