DotArai to register net domains

Database News : Thursday December 06, 2007

DotArai to register net domains

ICANN accredits first Thai registrar

SASIWIMON BOONRUANG

DotArai recently opened business as the first ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) accredited registrar in Thailand providing domain name registration and renewal services. The company expects to have 10% of all web sites in Thailand register their domain names within the first year.

There have been cases of domain names having been stolen, especially of popular web sites. Such a problem would decrease with an accredited registrar here, according to DotArai managing director Pensri Arunwatanamongkol.

So far, DotArai has tested the system with registries and now the company was ready to provide domain name registration services via the Internet.

"We the first registrar appointed in Thailand by ICANN," she said, adding that domain names that could be registered with DotArai included .com, .net, .org, .asia, .info, .tv, .biz and .th.

Service users can register any domain name with DotArai via a membership system. There are several channels for contact, including telephone, fax, email, post, SMS and live chat.

Unlike registrars abroad, benefits for customers here would be that they could contact with DotArai in Thai without being concerned about time zones, Pensri said, adding that users did not need to prepare any documents in English.

DotArai offered the service at a price 60% lower than other major domain name registrars, she said.

In January, DotArai will be seeking business partners, including web hosting service providers, to be DotArai resellers. The company is now offering a promotion for those web sites who move their domain names to Thailand at initial price of 399 baht, from now until January 31.

Currently, 10 web sites have agreed to move from abroad to register with DotArai. These are kapook.com, tarad.com, thaiyinyang.com, truehits.net, tourismthailand.org, dekdee.com, prachatai.com, thaigiving.org, formumandme.com, and blognone.com.

The managing director noted that there were over 2,000 electronic commerce web sites in Thailand. In total, there were some 320,000 web sites here and 260,000 of them were .com sites.

"We would like to encourage those web sites who have registered abroad to come back to Thailand and we expect that around 30,000 web sites, or 10 percent, will register with DotArai in the first year," Pensri said.

The company will work with the Small and Medium Business Promotion Office to introduce DotArai services to SMEs and help them create web sites.

"We have also negotiated with Google to do solutions for SMEs and schools by having Google Apps for them free of charge or at a cheap price," she said.

According to Dr Kanchana Wanichakorn, a researcher at the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec), there were around 26,225 domain names registered under .th.

By : Bangkok Post