The summer is getting near and at Openprovider things are heating up! The latest news from the domain industry is right here.
.lb, .hamburg and .co.no prices are going up!
For the following extensions, a price increase is scheduled:
- Due to a price adjustment from the registry on short notice, the prices for the Lebanese extensions .com.lb, .net.lb and .org.lb increased from the 1st of June 2021. For new registrations and renewals, the price increased by €70 (new tier prices are €107-€121); for transfers, the price increase is of €90 for all tiers (new tier prices are €127-€141).
- A currency misconfiguration has led us to correct the prices for the .co.no extension. From the 1st of June 2021, .co.no is charged in euros instead of Norwegian krones. The tier price is €21.00 for all tiers. Transfers are now free: no transfer fee is charged from now on. Restores are possible as well now, at a fee of €95. Note that this price change only affects .co.no, and not the native Norwegian extension .no which is not related to .co.no.
- .hamburg will increase its prices by €3.00 on the 1st of July 2021. The new Member price will be €33.15; all tier prices will increase by €3.00 as well.
Virtuozzo licenses have now become officially obsolete in our API
As you may remember, at the beginning of 2021 we announced the termination of our partnership with Virtuozzo. We want to let you know that as part of this termination we have marked all methods used for purchasing or managing Virtuozzo licenses in our REST and XML APIs as obsolete.
All updates can be found in the API documentation as well:
Simplified .it domain transfers
The transfer process for Italian .it domains has just been greatly simplified: the previously mandatory form, in which domain holders had to accept a series of terms before they could accept a domain transfer, has been eliminated. This form is only required for new registrations and no longer for transfers.
As a result, .it transfers will normally be completed within a day now. Take advantage of this change to move your remaining .it domains to your Openprovider account!
If you have a bigger .it portfolio with another registrar, feel free to contact us to discuss if the registry’s bulk transfer option is the best solution for you! For a one-time fee, starting at €250, and by signing a simple form, your domain names will be moved to your Openprovider account while we take care of the import of all contact and nameserver data!
.tickets, more accessible than ever before
Recently, the extension .tickets has been moved to XYZ LLC’s management. XYZ puts a lot of effort into increasing accessibility to domain names. As a result, the registry removed all previous restrictions from the .tickets extension: everyone can now register their .tickets domains; registration is in real time, no additional validation is performed and whois privacy protection is allowed. Find all registry policies on nic.tickets.
The last restriction to be removed is the minimum length of the domain name: that is 4 characters, until the 14th of July. On that date, the minimum length will be reduced to 1 character, like any other XYZ-operated extension.
Updates coming to .in! Data validation and end user involvement
NIXI, the registry for .in (India) domains, has informed us of two new projects they are starting:
Registration data validation
First of all, they will start to check the accuracy of registration data. Although the registry has not shared all the details with us yet, we expect this process to be similar to that of other registries: most likely we will send you a report with domains that contain invalid registration data, with a deadline to fix it. We urge you to take those emails seriously, as non-responsiveness can lead to the deletion of your domain name. We will let you know as soon as more information is available.
Registry to offer web hosting and design services directly to domain holders
A more worrying development is this email sent to domain holders by the registry in mid-May. According to the text, they are about to offer free email hosting to all domain holders, as well as web hosting and web design services in the near future.
We have not received all the details from the registry yet, so the scope is not fully clear at this moment. We’ll keep you posted as soon as we have more information!
Update to long-term GRS promotion
Since the launch of the extensions listed in the table below, GRS (registry) has been running a promotion. On the 1st of July 2021, they will update the promotion details; registration and transfer fees increase by $1.00 for the lowest-priced extensions and remain unchanged for the rest. The renewal prices increase for all extensions. From the 1st of July, the following promotional prices apply until further notice:
MEMBERS PRICES
| Current price | Current price | Price on 1st of July | Price on 1st of July | |
| Create / transfer | Renew | Create / transfer | Renew | |
| .faith .racing .review .science .webcam |
$5.16 | $2.16 | $5.16 | $7.16 |
| .bid .date .download .loan .men .party .stream .trade .win |
$2.16 | $2.16 | $3.16 | $4.16 |
| .faith .racing .review .science .webcam |
$10.1 | $2.16 | $10.16 | $12.16 |
| .accountant .cricket |
$10.1 | $2.16 | $10.16 | $12.16 |
NON MEMBER PRICES
| Current price | Current price | Price on 1st of July | Price on 1st of July | |
| Create / transfer | Renew | Create / transfer | Renew | |
| .bid .date .download .loan .men .party .stream .trade .win |
$4.99 | $4.99 | $5.99 | $6.99 |
| .faith .racing .review .science .webcam |
$7.99 | $7.99 | $7.99 | $9.99 |
| .accountant .cricket |
$14.99 | $14.99 | $14.99 | $19.99 |
The importance of a global anycast DNS service
The Domain Name System (DNS), a decentralised system responsible for translating domain names to numerical IP addresses, is typically the first step in your customer’s journey towards your website, and therefore plays a key role in your overall customer experience.
A global, anycast DNS service provides the following advantages over traditional DNS systems:
- Faster Resolutions: the first part of a request to your website is typically a DNS lookup. A globally distributed DNS service ensures that your customers will always be connected to the closest server, resulting in lower latency and faster access times to your web properties.
- Global Presence: DNS zones are pushed to multiple DNS servers distributed around the globe, ensuring an optimal user experience for your global customers regardless of where they are.
- DDoS Protection: DNS is the first step in the journey to your website. A distributed DNS service keeps your DNS zones protected from DDoS DNS attacks at all times.
- 100% Uptime Guarantee: a DNS service with anycast capabilities ensures that your DNS zones are always online. Your websites will always be accessible regardless of regional disruptions.
At Openprovider we care about security and performance, and are always looking for ways to offer better and more reliable services to our customers. Over the next few months we will be strengthening our DNS offering to ensure we can better meet the expectations of our customers and their increasingly demanding users.
Openprovider: coming soon to Blesta
Openprovider is coming soon to Blesta! Hosters and domain resellers don’t have many choices when it comes to out-of-the-box billing platforms, but Blesta is quickly becoming a hot choice. Although they’ve been around for 14 years, they have seen record growth over the last few months because one of their main competitors has increased its prices.
We’ve heard from quite a few resellers who want to provision Openprovider domains via Blesta and we’re going to release a domain module soon. If there are features you need, or just want to get the latest updates about our Blesta module, please let us know: integrations@openprovider.com.
IP address update for our domain forwarding service
In the previous newsletter [https://openprovider.com/newsletter/newsletter-may-2021/], we informed you about our domain forwarding service migration on the 1st of June.
Unfortunately, an incorrect IP address was communicated. The correct IP address is 34.90.130.132.
For your convenience, we will also support the communicated IP address for a period of 4 months, until the 4th of October 2021.
If you use our forwarding service for domains that run on your own nameservers, please update the IP addresses to 34.90.130.132.
The key dates are:
* 1 June: discontinuation of IP address 52.209.188.36
* 1 June: replacement for 34.90.130.132 (the temporary IP address 34.90.181.29 will also be functional)
* 4 October: discontinuation of the temporary IP address 34.90.181.29.
If you use Openprovider’s nameservers, we will update the required configurations ourselves and no action will be required from your side.
Updates to new gTLDs
- .spa has extended its Landrush phase, which will end now on the 1st of October 2021 (instead of the 24th of June 2021). As a result, the General Availability will be postponed as well, however no new date is known yet.
- .inc and .dealer have migrated to another registry platform platform. No action is required from your side, but please note that all authorization codes have been reset.
- .madrid has extended its pre-evaluation period until the 17th of December 2021. This means that new registrations will be activated only after review by the registry. That can take up to 5 working days.
- .basketball and .rugby have finally announced their definitive launch dates: the General Availability will start on the 15th of June for .basketball and the 1st of July for .rugby. Find full details in our launch calendar.
Early Access Programs:
- 8 June: .sbs
General Availabilities:
- 15 June: .sbs
- 15 June: .basketball
- 1 July: .rugby
Upcoming price changes:
- 1 June: .com.lb, .net.lb, .org.lb
- 1 June: .co.no
- 1 July: .hamburg
- 1 July: .club
- 1 September: .com
