I cannot see the domain industry growing significantly, even with lower
.com.au prices. The current price of $140 per two years is already too low
to be a significant factor. What else can you do in a business that costs
only $70 per year? The ISP hosting your web site costs at lot more than
that.

With competition, I'm sure that price will be lowered (possibly halved) from
their current level, but it's not the cost of a domain that is the limiting
factor.

When the rules are relaxed (changed) allowing multiple domains per business
entity, this will expand the market. Additionally when (if) auDA allows more
2TLDs, this will also expand the market. I don't want to preempt the review.
No .biz.au though please !!

Of course .id.au will also have an impact - albeit shortlived. How many
derivations of jonathon-livingstone-seagull.id.au can be registered?

Once again, this is my own personal view.

Regards,
Kevin


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Corliss [mailto:patrick§quad.net.au]
> Sent: Sunday, 9 June 2002 7:58 AM
> To: Marty Drill - Nexsta
> Cc: [dns]
> Subject: Re: [DNS] registrars and resellers
>
>
> On Sat, 8 Jun 2002 13:27:10 +1000, Marty Drill  - Nexsta wrote:
>
> > Your assertion that there is not a lot of money in selling domain names
> > in Australia is correct. With 10 players in the market, the competition
> > will be high and the margins low.  With roughly 250,000 .com.au names
> > registered at the moment and a total of up to 50,000 other au names;
> > conservatively you may suggest the numbers don't add up.
>
> Congratulations on being appointed a provisionally accredited
> registrar.  I
> wish you well in the new environment :)
>
> In relation to your first point, AusRegistry has already declared
> that they
> will market domain names across the board fairly vigorously to assist
> registrars.  It is very unlikely, imo, that the total numbers
> will stay low.
> It would be reasonable, in my view, to expect at least a couple of million
> domain names in a population of nearly 20 million people and an
> untold number
> of corporations, charities and other entities.
>
> At present, many smaller organisations simply use their own ISP's
> services or,
> sometimes, a cheap global domain name.  I'd say with a lower
> price the market
> share in Australia will grow considerably.  One growth area is that of
> personal domain names.
>
> The current price of A$140 for com.au and net.au is way too high,
> especially
> if you have to register a business name first, and I'd expect the
> new regime
> to start with a price of $99 including GST and go lower as the competition
> bites deeper.
>
> Of course, that's my own personal view.
>
> Best of luck !!
>
> Regards
> Patrick Corliss
> _________________________________________________________
> I'm on the Board of auDA (the .au country code).  Anything I write is my
> own personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views
> of any body
> with which I am associated.  Please also note IANAL (I Am Not A Lawyer).
>
>
>
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