A work item?

>     Despite the stated technical merits of a single root,
>     I think one needs to reflect on the implications that 
>     a few of the world's largest ISPs appear to have made 
>     a business decision to use a superset of the ICANN/US 
>     Department of Commerce's root zone.
> 
> Which big ones? I've never seen any official message about this.

See www.new.net/about_us_partners.tp. Earthlink and Netzero 
have been listed as the US' second and third largest ISPs 
(according to http://www.ispworld.com/isp/TRI_census.htm).
That's not even counting Excite at Home.

>     
>     It's claimed that the US had about 100 million Internet 
>     users in December 2000. According to New.net's numbers
>     (which needs to be confirmed), about 16% of those can now 
>     use their alternative root. 
> 
> I've seen various claims by various alternative root operators. None
> have been confirmed by independent research as far as I know.

New.net claims that 16 million users can resolve their TLDs based
on their partnerships with ISPs (like I said, this needs to be 
confirmed independently). 

16 million of 100 million is 16%.

Robert
--
Robert Shaw <robert.shaw at itu.int>
ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor
International Telecommunication Union <http://www.itu.int>
Place des Nations, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland