When we refer to ‘the previous round’, we are talking about 2012, when ICANN opened its first truly open application window. During this period, anyone could apply for their own domain extension. Between January and April of that year, 1,930 parties did so, submitting a total of 1,410 unique applications.
The intention was to open the next application window within a year, i.e. by April 2013 at the latest. To say that this was not achieved would be an understatement; a great deal of work was required to properly manage an application window of this size. Ultimately, the next round opened no less than 14 years later.
Although this was the first ‘public’ application round, new domain extensions had already been introduced on a small scale. A brief timeline: