NSF Acting Deputy Director Bordogna Testifies on NSF
Role in Internet Domain Name System
September 25, 1997
NSF Acting Deputy Director Dr. Joseph Bordogna discussed
NSF's role in fostering growth of the Internet, including
NSF's role in domain name registration at a hearing
on the Internet Domain Name System before the House
Subcommittee on Basic Research on September 25, 1997.
Dr. Bordogna explained that "NSF has launched an ambitious
set of research and education activities - Knowledge
and Distributed Intelligence or KDI - [that aim] to
improve our ability to collect, represent, transmit
and apply information." The KDI initiative represents
"the future direction for most NSF investments in
networking for science, engineering and education,
Bordogna added, and "that is why NSF has been slowly
withdrawing support of technologies and concepts related
to the original Internet."
Bordogna also told the subcommittee that NSF sees little
role for itself given the rapid commercialization
of the Internet. "NSF is not the proper place to put
the oversight," he said. "We get increasingly worried
about our ability to oversee something which is not
really in our statutory mission."
Assistant Commerce Secretary Larry Irving told the
subcommittee a draft plan for overhauling the Internet
address system that will rely heavily on the private
sector will be available by early November. "There's
no present or future inclination of anybody in the
government to continue the role of governance or direction,"
he said. "We want to give it to the private sector."
An interagency task force studying the problem will
issue a comprehensive plan within about a month, Irving
said. Irving also said that while the NSF cooperative
agreement with Network Solutions, Inc. for domain
name registration ends March 31, 1998, it was his
opinion that it should be extended for up to six months.
Bordogna was not as certain whether the cooperative
agreement would be extended. "The NSF is not going
to walk away from its responsibility of oversight,".
However, Bordogna emphasized that the National Science
Foundation would like to "transfer oversight to another
governmental entity."
Subcommittee Vice-Chairman Chip Pickering said that
the hearings were called to clear up questions about
exactly when the NSF will let its contracts with Network
Solutions and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
(IANA) expire and how the administration plans to
prevent chaos.
"We need a transition plan first, and then have contracts
expire in a deliberate step-by-step process that facilitates
the transitioning of the domain names system to the
private sector," Pickering said. Pickering also echoed
the view of Irving and Bordogna that the private sector
should govern the Internet in the future. "We want
to see private and competitive solutions," he said.
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