At the August '99 ICANN meeting in Santiago a Resolution was adopted to establish an ad hoc group to be charged with developing the objectives and proposing structures for future policies in the area of numbering, especially as required to meet global market needs and taking into account the convergence of information technology services and networks. The group will include representatives of businesses, including telecom operators and Internet service providers and trade organizations, the ASO Council, the ICANN Board, and other legitimately interested parties. The group will present an interim report before the second ICANN public meeting in 2000. A final report from the ad hoc group will be presented to the ICANN Board prior to the Annual Meeting in 2000.

The ad hoc group should identify the key technology, commercial and economic drivers that will affect addressing and numbering in the Internet. Recognising the risks of specifying modifications to core Internet technologies in a small group that inevitably understands some elements of the picture better than others, the group will identify issues, problems, risks, and opportunities, but is not expected to propose, much less adopt, technical solutions to them. The assessment must include current trends in services and network convergence and globalisation, particularly those emerging from the telecommunications sector, as well as changes in the demands on traditional IP address space. Examples of technology forces to be considered include IMT 2000, 3GPP, and Bluetooth. The group will examine and identify any characteristics of these applications that they believe are so unusual as to challenge the Internet's technical tradition of an application-independent basic architecture for addressing and routing structures.

The ad hoc group shall focus on the future demands and impacts these new technologies will have on the administration of IP address space. Particular attention must be given towards global policy formation and the identification of any requirements to Internet addressing in the future. If the ad hoc group identifies areas in which they believe changes to addressing architectures or other technologies should be considered, they should clearly identify the problems that require resolution rather than suggesting technical solutions so that appropriate responses to those requirements can be considered in a broader more open and technically responsive forum.

The Ad Hoc Group will work through a dedicated ICANN Public Comment Forum on the ICANN website. Representatives of the organizations specified within the Resolution passed at the ICANN meeting held in Santiago 8/99 will be invited to post their observations to this Forum. In order to progress work within the challenging timescale set out in the ICANN Resolution the ICANN Board will invite a small Editorial Group to co-ordinate the Forum.

All conclusions recommendations shall be posted on the ICANN web site for public comment.