Renew your domain (.COM and .NET) now!!!

Come July 1st, and after an increase in domain name prices in 2008, Verisign will again exercise its contractual right to raise domain name prices. The base registration price for .com domain names will be hiked by at least 7% and that of .net will be hiked by 10% for all registrars. This price hike is being made under VeriSign’s contract (which runs through 2012) with ICANN. No doubt that like always, registrars will pass the price increase on to customers.

It helps to note that the ICANN has given VeriSign a monopoly over the .com and .net TLDs, allowing the company to hike prices up each year. Assuming that VeriSign continues the 7 percent rise each year (which seems reasonable as per the company’s history), registrars will be looking at $9.00 for .com domains by the time the current contract ends in 2012—a 50 percent increase in six years.

If you plan to register / renew a domain name, do it now before price increase. You will save some money or  regret later.

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Internet testing regional flavour with Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs)

An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an Internet domain name that contains a language-specific script or alphabet, such as Hindi, Chinese, Russian or the Latin-based languages with diacritics, such as French. These writing systems are encoded by computers in multi-byte Unicode. Few domain registrar companies worldwide have started offering IDN registration. Recently I purchased (read Registered) my own IDN अजय.com from one such registrar.  Now, the question comes is that how IDNs can be hosted or accessed? How do one type the internationalized domain name in browser window if (s)he doesn’t has the tools to type in that particular language. Enters Punycode.

Punycode is intended for the encoding of language specific component of the Internationalized Domain Names, such that these domain names may be represented in the ASCII character set allowed in the Domain Name System of the Internet (The encoding syntax is defined in IETF document RFC 3492). This procedure is known as ToASCII and ToUnicode. For example अजय.com in punycode becomes xn--l1b0cxc.com. To host an IDN (domain name containing international (non-English) characters), you need to convert the domain name into “punycode” before entering it into the DNS server. The domain registrar with which you will register the IDN shall provide you punycode equivalent of that IDN. However, you can find one such tool at network tools website.

In my opinion IDNs will take some time to pickup the pace. Moreover, it will add more confusion to already confused common user of internet.

Many more domain name extensions pricing takes a nose diving

Seems economic recession has affected Domain registration business too. And, to attract more customers, more and more domain name extensions pricing is being discounted. Recent addition to the list are .TV, .ORG, .MOBI and .US domain names. For a update on promotion pricing for all these domain extensions,

Pricing for all New .IN domain names goes under knife once again

updated: Starting 24th March, Anubhooti Internet is offering all new .IN registrations at Rs. 250/= (US$ 5) per year including .co.in, .net.in, .org.in etc.

After a promotional price cut in 2007 for all .IN registrations, today once again many registrars announced a dip in pricing for all second and third level .IN domain names. As the .IN promotion goes on, pricing for any new .IN domain name has come down to Rs. 500/= (plus / minus Rs. 50 depending on the Registrar). Earlier second level .IN domain names were being sold at Rs. 800/=. Pricing for new third level .IN domain names have come down to Rs. 375/= in comparison to earlier selling rate of Rs. 450/=.

.TEL General Availability Starts Today

Starting 2100 Hrs IST, Today, .TEL will be available for registration to all on first come first served basis. Sunrise period for .TEL started on 03.December.2008 and landrush period started from 03.February.09. Now, anyone can register this tld through ICANN accredited registrars. General Availability registrations will carry a one-year minimum term and are subjected to the standard registration conditions depicted by the regisrar company. For more on .TEL check out detailed .TEL FAQs.

Anubhooti Internet (registrar and host of this blog), in association with DirectI, will make .TEL available for registration at an attractive price of Rs. 600/= (US$ 12) per annum.

Verisign Increases Price of Domain Names

Come October 1st, and after an increase in domain name prices in 2007, Verisign is again exercising its contractual right to raise prices. The base registration fees for .com domain names will be hiked to $6.86 from existing $6.42 per .com domain for all registrars. Currently, registrars pay VeriSign $6.42 per .com domain name. This price hike is within maximum 7 percent increase allowable under VeriSign’s contract (which runs through 2012) with ICANN.

Rock bottom prices for .US domain names

After .Net, .In, .Info and .Mobi, now Domain Registrar companies are luring customers to .US domain names by dropping prices sharply. Along with .Info and .Mobi promotions running for quite some time, many registrars, including Anubhooti Internet have announced a dip in pricing of .US domain names.

As per the promotion, pricing for any new .US domain name for an End User has come down to Rs.