Dear Rebbecca,
First things first, kudos to you for
this info which has explained all I needed to know about ICANN and has been beneficial
is my understanding of the acronyms. I do agree with you that ICANN should examine
TLD applicants on the basis
of their technical and financial strength.
Internet user who propose to use the
internet protocols and infrastructures for otherwise lawful purposes should be
let to do so. What am I saying-‘ICANN role in TLD should be seen as articulating
the broad values of internet community’. I do hope that creation of Regional
At-Large Organisations (RALOs) will give us a platform to air our decisions and
shape internet use.
Again through KICTAnet,I have appreciated
ICT usage and capability is enormous in
But my worry is the snail pace in policy
implementation in
I do hope as a country we shall
implement this offer to full.
World Bank
Approves US$164.5 Million for Connectivity to Make Kenya, Burundi and
Madagascar More Competitive Up to 25 countries in East and Southern
Africa could benefit from the broader US$424 million Regional Communications
Infrastructure Program (RCIP)
Regards,
Mike Ngaruiya
Centurion Systems Ltd
Business Development
Email:
From:
kictanet-bounces+kevit=centurionsystemsltd.com@kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+kevit=centurionsystemsltd.com@kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Rebecca Wanjiku
Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2007
9:16 AM
To: kevit@centurionsystemsltd.com
Subject: [kictanet] of ICANN and
acronyms
this is for all those who dont speak the foreign language
of ICANN and the acronyms
read on...
Domains
Explained, Part 1: Registrants, Registries, Registrars and Resellers
by Joey deVilla on
Fri 30 Mar 2007 03:49 PM EDT | Permanent
Link
In
Monday's article -- Questions to Ask Before
You Pick Your Domain Name Registrar -- Elliot covered a lot of
ground in his list of things you should know about when picking a domain name
registrar. In this series of articles, I'll expand on what he wrote and explain
some of the finer points of domain names that you might not be aware of.
Registrants,
Registries, Registrars and Resellers
The last
question in Elliot's list was Are you a
registrar or a reseller?
If these terms, along with registry and registrant
are unfamiliar to you, read on -- I'm going to explain what each one means.
Let me
begin with the diagram below. It provides a brief description of each of these
terms...
...and
also illustrates the relationships among them. I'll explain each of these terms
in greater detail after the diagram:
Registrant
The registrant
is the easiest one to explain. The registrant for a domain name is the person
or organization who registered and owns the domain name. If you've ever
registered a domain name, you're its registrant.
Registry
Before I can talk about registries, I need to talk
about top-level domains
first. A top-level domain -- often shortened to TLD -- is the last part of any
domain name. You're probably familiar with the generic TLDs .com, .org and .net and country code TLDs such as .ca, .de, .eu and .jp.
Each
top-level domain is managed by an organization called a registry, which is responsible for:
- Managing the domain names within its assigned
top-level domain.
- Maintaining the WHOIS database for that domain,
which stores information on each domain name in the top-level domain, such
as the domain's registrant, registrar and expiry date.
- Maintaining the root servers for that top-level
domain, which act as an "address book" for all nameservers
responsible for the top-level domain. I'll cover root servers and other
parts of the domain name system in a later article.
Registrar
In order to keep the domain name system working
and stable, only organizations accredited by ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers,
one of whose jobs is to manage the assignment of domain names and IP addresses)
can register domain names. If you're curious about what sort of process an
organization has to go through to become an accredited registrar, ICANN has a page that
describes it in detail.
There are
a few hundred ICANN-accredited registrars worldwide; Tucows is just of them.
One way for you to register a domain name is to select one of these registrars,
who will electronically make the appropriate arrangements with the registry and
activate your domain name.
There's
another way for you to register a domain name: through a reseller.
Reseller
In the previous section, I mentioned that Tucows
is a registrar. However, we're a little unusual. We don't directly register
domain names on behalf of registrants. Instead, we sell our capability to
register domain names to other companies, who then resell this capability to
registrants. Hence the name reseller.
You're
probably wondering why you'd want to go through a reseller rather than a
registrar. Two very important reasons are:
- Most of the time, you don't buy just a domain
name by itself. You also buy services that the
domain name points to, such as a website, a blog, email mailboxes and so
on. A good reseller will often offer package deals or bundles comprising
what they feel are the best services, just as a good retail store will
carry a selection of what they feel are the best brands.
- Customer service. By
reselling our domain name registration service, a reseller can spend less
time worrying about the technical and regulatory issues that registrars
face and spend more time on what's really important: their customers.
One thing
to keep in mind when registering domain names through a reseller: they're bound
by the policies of the registrar whose services they resell. Make sure you know
which registrar your reseller uses and what their domain name policies are.
Rebecca Wanjiku,
journalist,
p.o
Nairobi.00600
Tel. 254 720 318 925
blog:http://beckyit.blogspot.com/
Don't pick lemons.
See all the new
2007 cars at Yahoo!
Autos.