Technical Center of Internet’s functions will be transferred to a Rostelecom's subsidiary

It was decided at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ General meeting of founders that the functions of the Technical Center (registry operator) for country-code domains .RU/.РФ would be transferred to the structures of PAO Rostelecom (PJSC). To ensure integrity, continuity, stability, sustainability and security of the Russian segment of the Internet and its critical infrastructure a specific organization OOO Technical Center of Internet (limited liability company), which is a subsidiary of the OOO Russian Telecommunications Company – Data Processing Center (RTC-DPC). OOO RTC-DPC (limited liability company) is a GK PAO Rostelecom’s competence center in the field of data processing, cloud services and network technologies.

This decision was made at the suggestion of the Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation to transfer registry support of the country-code domains .RU and .РФ to a specialized subsidiary of PAO Rostelecom. Transfer of the support to the new organization will further enhance reliability, stability and sustainability of the registries. The best practices and technologies of the Technical Center of Internet as well as highly qualified personnel working currently at AO TCI (JSC) will be transferred to OOO TCI upon agreement of the parties.

Andrei Vorobyev, Director at the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ: “The most important task of the Coordination Center is to ensure stable and sustainable function of the Russian Internet addressing system. We are certain that the new organization managed by PAO Rostelecom will be able to provide all necessary conditions for the smooth operation of country-code domains and that the transfer of functions will not be noticed by the end users.”

“Support of the country-code domains is a very big responsibility for us, but all the developments made over the years will be passed to the OO Technical Center of Internet as well as AO TCI’s staff. This is why I’m certain that the transfer will go absolutely unnoticed by our registrars and users. The combination of AO TCI’s technological know-how and enormous practical experience of Rostelecom will create a good synergetic effect. Other registries maintained by AO TCI were offered to transfer their domains’ registries to OOO TCI. In addition, OOO TCI is open for cooperation with other registries and is willing to provide services under the second phase of the New gTLD program”, said Olga Yakovleva, General Director at OOO TCI.

“AO Technical Center of Internet is the direct successor of the Russian Institute for Public Networks established by the I. V. Kurchatov Institute of Atomic Energy in 1992. Staff members who worked successively in these organizations for 24 years supported the registries of the Russian country-code domains .RU and .РФ as well as .SU. We actively participated in ICANN’s new top-level domains program. TCI also supports two out of seven new Russian domains. In general, TCI set a precedent in Russia for creating a separate technical center that supports top-level domains. Other technical centers created afterwards used the experience of the company. I’m certain that the newly created organization will cope with the tasks entrusted to it and Russian domains will continue their development”, said Alexey Platonov, General Director at AO TCI, about the transfer.

We remind that PAO Rostelecom has extensive experience in the operation of infrastructure elements of Internet. Its subsidiary AO Computer Network Interaction Center MSK-IX has developed and maintained DNS network of top-level domains .RU, .РФ and .SU as well as other top and second-level domains for many years now apart from providing services of the largest national traffic exchange point. In general, outsourcing Internet infrastructure service to large specialized financially stable companies such as Rostelecom is in line with modern world trends. In particular, the domain .US in the USA is supported by a large public company NeuStar under a federal contract.