The Vietnam Network Information Centre (VNNIC) has recently decided to transfer the job of caring for and collecting fees from registers for domain names ending in .vn at VNNIC prior to November 1, 2006 to domain name register service providers.

This decision means that VNNIC will withdraw from the role as a direct provider of domain name registration to focus on state management functions.

Previously, this agency transferred part of its job to domain name registration service providers by no longer receiving registrations for new .vn domain names as of November 1, 2006. And now it even stops caring for and collecting fees from registers of .vn domain names before November 1, 2006.

Talking about this event, a representative of FPT Telecom, the leading provider of domain name registration service by June 30, 2007, said that VNNIC’s decision is greatly meaningful for domain name registration service providers because it creates real competition in developing .vn domain names.

In fact, the competition in this field has been fierce since VNNIC permitted the registration of second-level .vn domain names and loosened conditions for domain name registration in August 2006. VNNIC’s moves have encouraged the development of .vn domain names thanks to the increase of ‘goods’ and sellers.

“Previously, VNNIC worked as both a state management agency and a service provider so domain name registration service providers could not develop,” said Tran Ngoc Quang from FPT Telecom.

A representative of the Global Technology Application JS Company (GLTEC), the 8th largest provider of domain name registration services, shared the same idea with the representative of FPT Telecom as saying that there would have a new competition among service providers.

“Service providers will have to expand added value services and better support their clients,” said Vu The Binh, Deputy Director of NetNam, the tenth domain name registration service provider in the market.

Officials of VNNIC also said that the agency’s decision will not cause any impact on clients but will benefit them.

Service providers have immediately taken measures to obtain more and more domain names that were previously registered at VNNIC under their management because of over 10,000 domain names registered at VNNIC before November 1, 2006, there are many important domain names of state and party agencies as well as many big companies at home and abroad.

VDC has announced the exemption of 100% of DNS maintenance fees registered at VDC in the first year and reduce 10% of the fees for domain names that are transferred from VNNIC to VDC.

Meanwhile, FPT Telecom encourages clients to bring their domain names to FPT Telecom by exempting DNS maintenance fees for FPT domain names, reducing 10% for domain name extension fees, and others.

NetNam also states to apply some similar measures to attract clients.

The number of .vn domain names maintained at service providers by June 30, 2007:

1/ FPT: 7,097 domain names (16.21%)

2/ Hi-Tech: 6,991 (15.96%)

3/ VDC: 4,252 (9.71%)

4/ PA Vietnam: 3,301 (7.54%)

5/ Netsoft: 2,671 (6.10%)

6/ ESC: 2,069 (4.72%)

7/ Matbao: 1,994 (4.55%)

8/ GLTEC: 1,729 (3.95%)

9/ EURODNS: 1,342 (3.95%)

10/ NetNam: 1,194 (2.73%)