Some 150 Attend Annual Conference of German-speaking Domain Registries in Vienna

Following the invitation from the Austrian registry, nic.at, experts from several countries and various disciplines attended the "Domain pulse" conference held on 3 and 4 February 2005 in Vienna to discuss various themes and trends concerning the Internet. Once again this year, the event was co-hosted by two other domain administrations, DENIC (Germany) and SWITCH (Switzerland/Liechtenstein), who were pleased with the turn-out of more than 150 specialists, including, once again, numerous Internet providers.

Traditionally, the event kicks off with a presentation from the host country. Richard Wein, nic.at's general manager, began by describing his organization's structures and working methods particularly for the benefit of guests from other countries. He was followed by a number of political representatives, who described the situation in Austria. Regulating the Internet was once again an important issue at this year's conference.

Speaking on behalf of the Austrian government, Helmut Kukacka, State Secretary with particular responsibility for technology, stated: "we give the Internet what it needs most urgently to be able to continue on its upward trend: freedom to evolve and to find its own best shape". Georg Serentschy, a managing director of RTR (the Austrian radio and telecommunications regulator, now run as an autonomous enterprise), added that: "today the broad-band connection has become for businesses what motorway access used to be for them" and went on to emphasize the economic significance of the Internet.

The subject of international regulation was then looked at in greater depth in a panel discussion. Sabine Dolderer, a member of DENIC's Board, felt that it would be a big mistake to become excessively involved in debating the powers and influence of governments over the Internet and to forget to act as a result: "there is a certain tendency to spend a long time discussing who should have what powers in what situations and, in the process, to turn a blind eye to the pressing problems, whereas finding pragmatic solutions for these must actually be accorded the higher priority".

The first day finished with another round table, this time comprised of high-ranking business speakers. Sabine Fleischmann, a member of the executive management of Microsoft Austria, Georg Obermeier, CEO of T-Systems Austria, and a Hewlett Packard manager, Rudolf Gruber, debated the future prospects of the Internet from an economic point of view.

How far away is the refrigerator that can order its own replenishments? What are the new standards in the networked society going to look like? What can be done to ward off the threatened digital divide? The experts did agree on one point: the Internet is the growth driver of the future; the Internet revolution is causing both the economy and society to evolve.

The second day began with a presentation of ENUM's current state of development. ENUM is a new application of the Domain Name System, in which telephone numbers are associated with domains, through which it is then possible to call up telecommunication services. Sabine Dolderer gave a report on the ENUM trial which is currently being organized by DENIC.

The subject of spam was brought up frequently throughout the whole event before, finally, a panel discussion was dedicated to it as the conference's last substantive item. There can be no denying that spam is a tremendous annoyance for individual users, but it most definitely does not pose a threat to the existence of the Internet or e-mail, as is often claimed. The discussion looked into various technical, organizational and legal approaches, but the experts agreed that there was no patent remedy and that only a combination of measures looked likely to promise long-term success.