NiRA accredits 35 registrars for .ng

Nigeria Internet Registration Association (NiRA) has accredited 35 registrars to give boost access to potential registrants on the nation’s country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD), .ng.

President, NiRA, Mr. Ndukwe Kalu made this disclosure in his leadership business plan for the association as part of their achievement in the last one year of assuming office.

Speaking at the second Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the association, Kalu said they were excited to note that the recent Registrar Accreditation exercise was on very sound track.

“The executive board has approved the recommendations of the Registrar Accreditation Committee with the selection of 35 provisional Registrars,” he said.

These registrars, he said, were drawn from within and outside the country.

“We have registrars from Kano, Abuja, Lagos Enugu among others. Also we have Nigerians in Diaspora who have also been selected,” he declared, adding that a Senegalese firm is among the provisional registrars, which also happens to be the only Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) accredited registrar on the continent.

“We are excited by the number, location and caliber of these registrars, that includes internet pioneers like Linkserve,” he said, stressing that these registrars would finish the outstanding Registrar requirements to be able to commence operations come September 1, 2008.

These set of pioneer Registrars, Kalu pointed out, represent a landmark achievement for NIRA and core strength.

He also said that as a virgin domain base that NiRA and in fact .ng would have the strength to tap from other countries’ experiences both bad and good in order to grow steadily.

“For example our late start has enabled us to learn from the premium domain concept that has enabled us offer the cheapest domain registration rates in the world and of any new ccTLD. This has been possible because we have carved out two premium classes for domain,” he said.

Emphasizing that the two classes for domain is more like the airline industry first class and business class.

“Our ‘First class’ domains are those soon to be auctioned on the second level. These domains are very limited and may not exceed 20 in number. It would offer desired companies or institutions the opportunity to register on the second level for personal use or at the third level. For example mtn.ng. zain.ng, glo.ng among others,” he explained.

In additional, he said that NiRA has the equivalent of the ‘business class’ premium domains which are selected generic or special names on any of the commercial second level domains like .com.ng, net.ng, org.ng, mobi.ng, name.ng.

“This represents over 10,000 such names which would also be available on auction at regular intervals. Some of the names include bank.com.ng, bank.org.ng, market.com.ng etc.

Reiterating that this core strength would immediately place the .ng ccTLd in the global spotlight.


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