Domain names now under new management

On January 12 2007 the Legislative Council of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) passed Resolution 2 of 2007 appointing Joseph S Archibald QC and Linnell Abbott as chairman and deputy chairman of the Board of the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) under Section 7 of the Telecommunications Act 2006 (10 of 2006). The Telecommunications Act 2006 came into force on October 24 2006 by a Proclamation of the Governor (SI 76 of 2006).

One of the functions of the TRC is to administer domain names in the BVI. For this purpose it is responsible for the management of the BVI country-code top-level domain '.vg', in accordance with the manner that it shall determine, and may also appoint registration agents to carry out such functions as it may determine.

The board must comprise of between three and five commissioners, one of whom must be the chief executive officer, and one must have a telecommunications services background and be from outside the BVI. Following the recent appointments of chairman and deputy chairman together with the appointment of David Iverson as chief executive officer on October 9 2006, the TRC is now properly constituted under the Telecommunications Act. It will be responsible for issuing, supplementing and updating guidelines, standards and other requirements relating to telecommunications, including domain names management.

With regulations to be passed by the responsible minister after consultation with the TRC, it is expected that domain name registrations, especially in the '.vg' domain, and other issues relating to domain names management in the BVI will soon receive much-needed attention. Among the issues to be addressed is the specific procedure to register domain names in the BVI, including whether a physical presence in the BVI will now be required to own a BVI domain name, as well as the documents, registration fees and dispute resolution mechanism.

Jamal Smith, Harneys, Tortola