In a statement in the middle of the night EST ICANN annoucned that they have as promissed re-opened the TAS system after taking it off line for almost 6 weeks.
”
The TLD Application System, or TAS, has reopened. All registered applicants can now log in, review and submit their applications.
The system will remain open until 23:59 GMT/UTC on 30 May 2012. Consistent with our previous practice and to allow the application window to open as soon as possible, two-hour maintenance windows have been scheduled as follows: 22 May at 16:30 GMT/UTC, 25 May at 23:00 UTC, and 29 May at 22:00 UTC.
Applicants are encouraged to review “Top Things Users Should Know When TAS Reopens,” posted on the new gTLD microsite at http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/applicants/tas/top-ten. The document provides advice on logging into and completing applications, submitting wire transfers, and contacting customer service with any issues users might encounter.
During the last few weeks, we have fixed the technical glitch that caused us to take the system offline. Also, to address user feedback, we have improved the overall system performance and the HTML preview function.
In our continuing review of the system logs and system traffic, we determined that in two instances, a single file might have been temporarily unavailable to an applicant. Full access to those two files has been restored. ICANN notified the affected users.
We recognize and regret the inconvenience caused by this glitch and the delayed closing of the application window.”
“In a statement in the middle of the night…”
…that must have come from the ICANN Dark Tangent
Did ICANN reveal the Applications that obtained 100% refunds ?
…and the ASCII strings they liked ?
ICANN is only ASCII – right ?
ICANN hasn’t made any statements on the number of requested refunds to my knowledge yet.
Apparently, some Applicants have not paid and will not likely get a refund.
Some Applicants have apparently collected money from investors but never paid ICANN. They remain in the game claiming to be Applicants but ICANN does not dispute that. It is surprising all the transactions are not online for the public to see.
Meanwhile, the US Government is walking away to build their own equivalent.
They probably will work primarily with the 9 Applicants the FCC selected.
ICANN will have to conjure up more delays to make Applicants go away. Some Applicants are now seeing how the game will change and the steep road ahead.
BTW One guy claimed he mailed his $185 in cash. That will be hard to prove.
Another person plans to mail a $185 check as a donation to have a canceled check to claim they applied and paid.
It is still not clear how the $25 per year will be paid. Will ICANN send invoices ?
The “9 Applicants the FCC selected”? Care to elaborate on this? The FCC is involved with domain names? I must admit I have more faith in the FCC, who hires academics who have devoted their careers to electronic communications, than ICANN, who hires crackers turned “security consultants”. But that’s just me.
BTW here’s an up-to-date list of applications and applicants:
http://registries.tel/
Joe
That’s not an “up to date list” its a list of “known” applications
We know the number of application are over 2K because ICANN so announced
“9 Applicants the FCC selected”?
http: // www. fcc. gov/encyclopedia/white-space-database-administration-q-page
Microsoft was added late in the bid process.
from TVtechnology
“Out of the 10 conditionally designated TV Band Device Database Managers, two have now completed their public trial: Spectrum Bridge and Telcordia. The remaining potential database managers are Comsearch, Frequency Finder, Google, KB Enterprises LLC and LS Telcom, Neustar, WSdb LLC, and Microsoft.”
Note also the NTIA Dept. of Commerce has just announced a new plan to select 15 Board Members to oversee FirstNet. It will be hard to keep all Americans off the government managed networks.
Also note, the Chairman of ICANN is on one of the FCC Committees as well as a long-time domain insider from Neustar.
It will be interesting to see the 15 selected by the NTIA US Dept. of Commerce.
3 are designated by Congress and 12 are appointed.
The U.S. Government is re-building their own IANA – no surprise.