Dr. Waudo,

On 27 June 2016 at 20:37, waudo siganga <emailsignet@mailcan.com> wrote:

Hi Mwendwa - maybe Collins was only using co.ke as an example, to ask the question whether it is possible to register second level rather than third-level domains on .ke because that could be a business idea????

W.

I think my explanation on IG issues has evolved to a level not easily comprehensible. We are talking the same thing here. That the namespace can be opened to accommodate registrations at the second level rather than sub domains. We may get an announcement soon on the same from the relevant bodies. But for that to happen, there must be proper stakeholder engagement. It cannot happen overnight. For example, a reservation period of say 4 years has to be put in place for all the current owners of any .ke domain to register their name first before anybody else takes them up. So I don't expect Collins to own google.ke at the expense of google.co.ke. So if there was a popular name you were dreaming of, you have no luck because the current owners are given first priority.

There is a misconception by the community that opening up the namespace to allow registration at the second level will push up number, or that it will give people more variety. Nothing can be further from the truth. My crystal ball (not the same as that of Makau Mutua) tells me that we will not achieve more than 10,000 after opening it up. And most of this will be domainers. South Africa have never opened up their .za namespace yet they still managed to get their domains to surpass the one million mark. We are still sub 100k.

I can see Ebele salivating at the possibility of registering Achike Adefolake Adeleke Adenike Fowoke Ibironke Oluwatoke ...

KENIC should not rely on Nigeria or any other external source to push our numbers up. Nigeria with 180 million people has only managed a paltry 70k domains in the .ng. They don't have enough disposable income to push their numbers up, let alone ours. You see, there is a correlation of domain registrations with income per capita. See this simple statistics

de at 16million domains, population 81million people, per capita $47,033

.uk at 10million domains, population 65million people, per capita $41,159

.za at 1million domains, population 54 million people, per capita $13,165

.ng at 70thousand domains, population180million people, per capita $6,108

.ke at 58thousand domains, population 44million people, per capita $2,780

My point is, the growth of the .ke namespace is not reliant on excuses that it's not open. Because when we shall open it, then we will start looking at the next scapegoat. Remember the number portability that we all asked to have? It's virtually dead.

Sincerely,

Mwendwa Kivuva