On Sun, 22 Feb 1998, Kent Crispin wrote:
> > Inside North America * there is no competition *. Everything is
> > run by NSI.
> >
> > Outside North America there IS competition.
> >
> > So look for your data outside North America.
>
> I was. I was referring to the ccTLDs, just as you were. Last I heard
> the average price for a ccTLD, outside North America, was quite high,
> and the policies ranged from excellent to nightmare. The last time
> this came up someone from Netnames provided some data...perhaps Ivan
> or Antony could chime in?
Take care in how you compute averages.
> > In the UK registry prices have fallen steadily since Nominet was
> > set up.
>
> One shouldn't generalize from one example, didn't I just hear you say?
No, I said that you should not generalize from a complete lack of
data.
There are quite a few nTLDs in Europe and quite a range of policies.
The successful nTLDs have lower prices and better policies.
Europe is a nice little laboratory in this regard. The results say
that competition works. The various nTLD registries are keenly
aware of one another and information about different policies and
prices is widely distributed. There is steady pressure on the
registries to rationalize policies.
Competition works.
> > > In fact, I think an unbiased examination would reveal that the
> > > "registry industry" (to use Jim Flemings term) is so complexly
> > > regulated that to say that competition is "alive and well" is absurd.
> >
> > Especially if you rely upon no evidence at all.
>
> Jim, why do you waste *your* time with gratuitous little insults like
> this?
Hmmm. Well, I balanced "absurd" and "no evidence at all" and decided
that I was being considerably more polite than you ;-)
> As I said, I agree that there can be competition in *new*
> registrations, and I think the Nominet phenomenon you describe is
> almost completely explained by that -- in fact, as you described it,
> the primary problem with the name committee was precisely getting
> a *new* name approved.
This is true, simply because the naming committee had no power over
existing names.
> > On what vast experience of the UK market do you base this judgement?
> > I know I only have experience and know what I am talking about, but
> > our real world customers switched to .UK _despite_ the InterNIC and
> > .COM having a price advantage.
>
> Are you claiming that most of your your customers *changed* from a
> .com to a .uk domain -- that would be news! Or, more likely, are you
> saying that *new* registrations are going into .uk (for which there
> are all kinds of explanations possible, as I have mentioned.)
We are talking about new registrations, mostly. However, you did
see some migration from .com into .uk.
This isn't some sort of intellectual exercise. We _knew_ why people
switched from .com to .uk. We talked to them about it.
> > > NSI can certainly afford
> > > to undercut even Nominet's prices in that tiny restricted area, gain
> > > substantial market share, and relegate Nominet to an unimportant
> > > backwater of the domain name space.
> >
> > Nominet can lower its fees to registrars to the sub-10 pound range
> > with no difficulty at all.
>
> Oh -- NSI certainly could as well. In fact, I expect to see that, as
> the marketing blitz's begin...
Oh, this won't happen. Nominet has repeatedly suggested that they
lower prices and had it rejected by their registrars. Were there a
practical reason for prices to fall, like competition from NSI,
the prices would plummet appropriately.
There is another side to all of this. All governments in Europe
give at least lip service to competition. Trying to convince the
Department of Trade and Industry in the UK or the European
Commission in Brussels that competition is unacceptable is a very
good way to get doors shut in your face. On the other hand, one
of the strongest arguments against the green paper is that it
perpetuates the NSI monopoly.
-- Jim Dixon VBCnet GB Ltd http://www.vbc.net tel +44 117 929 1316 fax +44 117 927 2015
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