At a standing-room-only meeting on the evening of June 21, 2015
– at the ICANN 53 global meeting in Buenos Aires –
Assistant Secretary Larry Strickling, administrator of the National
Telecommunications and Information Administration
("NTIA"), gave his comments on the current timeline for
the transition of the IANA (i.e., technical) functions of ICANN.
The bottom line is that transition will probably happen sometime in
spring 2016 under the best-case scenario.
By way of background, before transition (also called
"stewardship"), a number of milestones need to be
achieved. The Cross-Community Working Group on Stewardship –
Naming ("CWG") needed to complete its report and have it
approved, which was done on June 24. The report forms part of the
larger IANA Stewardship Transition Coordination Group
("ICG") process. It was made clear at the other meetings
here that the CWG report (part of the ICG effort) will be
contingent on certain criteria being established in the
