New TLD contracting

The following is an outline of the Contracting process as defined by ICANN, it is our goal to supplement this with actual contracting timelines and action items that are encountered by new TLD applicants. Information can be edited directly, or contact Andrew Merriam, andrew[at]tldesign.co

Steps & Timeline

1. CIR (approx. 8 days)
   1. CIR Review
2. Sign Registry Agreement
3. Pre-Delegation Testing (approx. 6 weeks)
4. Transition to Delegation (approx. 2 weeks)
5. Delegation
6. Registry Onboarding
   1. Sunrise (min. 60 days)

Contracting Information Request

• See Contracting Information Request summary and example.
  • ICANN's CIR Guide, with examples
• ICANN suggested timeline: 8 days
• Applicant timeline examples: _ days

Registry Agreement

• See Summary and Examples on Signing Registry Agreement
• ICANN suggested timeline: 7 days
• Applicant timeline examples:

Post RA Provisioning

• Contact Sheet - Establishes appropriate contacts for various contingencies.
• Delegation Info - Can be established concurrently with PDT, but must be completed prior to Delegation. Includes information on Zone File Access; Bulk Thin Registration Data Access; Data Escrow Registry Reporting; URS; EPP; IDN Tables; SLA Monitoring.

Pre-Delegation Testing

• See Pre-Delegation Testing for summary
• ICANN suggested timeline: 2-3 weeks
  • In prior documents, ICANN has broken this down as 2 weeks for testing, and an additional 2-3 weeks for reporting the PDT results. This seems to have been recently conflated and changed to a 6 week process, according to slides from ICANN 48 in Buenos Aires.
• Applicant timeline examples:
  • 21 days, Aug 5-Aug 26; DotShabaka. Yasmin Omer has explained that as the first applicant to go through PDT, their experience should not be taken as indicative of current ICANN processes.
• ICANN's Self-Test Tools

Transition to Delegation

• ICANN suggested timeline: 2 weeks
• Applicant timeline examples:

Delegation

• ICANN suggested timeline: within 30 business days
• Applicant timeline examples: 5 days, Oct. 19-24; dotShabaka.

Delegation Process

See Delegation for more information and examples.

Overview

Below is an overview provided by the dotShabaka Registry:

• "Notification of eligibility for Alternate Path to delegation and report
• Request for Delegation POC
• Delegation token sent through CSC portal
• Delegation PIN sent to Delegation POC
• Token and pin entered into RZM system to initiate process
• Following information entered:
  • Manager: also know as the "Registry" or "Sponsoring Organization"
  • Administrative and Technical Contacts
  • Authoritative Name servers maintained to serve the TLD
  • Registration Information: additional information including location of whois server"

Tips

dotShabaka also had some recommendations and tips for the delegation process, such as making sure that the Delegation POC and Primary Contact are the same and ensuring that whois is located at whois.nic.tld. Additionally, the whois server needs to be established to continue through the RZM system, which can become an issue. Hosting the whois server at a different location during the process can solve this problem.

Registry Onboarding

• ICANN suggested timeline: 30+ days
• Applicant timeline examples:
  • Parts of registry onboarding can be done concurrently with PDT, Delegation, and Sunrise.

Sunrise Period

• See Sunrise Period summary, (min. 60 days)
  • ICANN mandated timeline for Start Date Sunrise: 30 day notice period with a minimum of 30 days running
  • ICANN mandated timeline for End Date Sunrise: no notice period, minimum of 60 days running

Applicant Examples

Applicant Timelines

This timeline shows the experience of dotShakaba, beginning with the execution of their registry agreement.

Top-Level Domain

Internationalized Domain Name