Erwin Oliva’s letter
January 21, 2005I recently received a letter from Erwin Oliva of the Inquirer.
Hi Erwin,
Thanks for dropping by. Here are the answers to your questions:
1) Based on the change of IANA/ICANN policies on disputes, how are you going to handle the choice between being a registrar and registry?
Basically, we have no idea why Mr. Pena wants us to choose between being a Registrar or Registry. We’ve asked him several times in person & in our letters to him what the rationale for this was. What problem is he trying to fix? Does he think that by closing down the DotPH Registrar division, more companies will apply to be Registrars? If you look at our website, all it takes to be a DotPH Registrar is for someone to buy 20 domains! Today, DotPH has over 200 Registrars, and is actively encouraging more to apply . See June 10, 2004 post here.
Does he think that by doing this, the prices of PH domains will drop? We’ve tried to explain that domain prices are determined by market forces. In the Philippines, practically every ISP sells COM domains and PH Domains. Yet a survey taken in 2004 (See Part VIII, Pricing) shows that the retail price of COM and PH are roughly the same at $35/year. By preventing Dotph from being a Registrar, you reduce competition in the marketplace and this may actually cause PH domains to be more expensive than COM. And even if Mr. Pena were to order the Registry to drop wholesale prices to the level of COM, it’s clear that the retail price of PH will not change!
We’re totally in the dark, and what we’ve suggested is for Mr. Pena to first itemize what problems he sees in the way DotPH operates, in our service, in our policies, etc. Then we can talk about ways to solve this, and then draft a contract that binds us (and the government) to prevent these problems from recurring. We’ve asked for this so many times,
see
Nov 14, 2003
Feb 5, 2004
Mar 12, 2004
Mar 25, 2004
Mar 31, 2004
that I can only guess that Mr. Pena is concerned that he won’t be able to find any substantial problems in our operations?
If you recall, the very same people Mr. Pena is dealing with, who are now calling for redelegation, were asked in 2000 by then DTI Asst. Secretary Toby Monsod, to list and substantiate their complaints. By 2002, every single complaint filed wasdismissed by the DTI.
2) in case government pushes for redelegation if you’re not able to comply with its guidelines, what are you prepared to do?
Please take a look at RFC 1591, which states that ICANN will not step in unless there is proof that DotPH has “substantially misbehaved”. This is why I think it’s important for Mr. Pena to really study if there are any substantial (and substantiated) problems in our operation. It helps him seize control of the Registry (if that is really his objective); but more importantly, it allows us to start discussing ways to solve these problems which may not necessarily be as drastic and confrontational.
I’ve tried to explain to Mr. Pena that the Guidelines, as crafted are way too onerous for anyone to agree with. For example, the Guidelines give the CICT the right to impose arbitrary rules and regulations. And if we disagreed, we would have no choice but to face redelegation! I don’t see how any Registry can possibly agree to this. Who would invest time and money in a business that depends on the whims of the CICT? IMHO, that’s a formula that encourages corruption.
I’ve also tried to explain to Mr. Pena that Guidelines are riddled with errors. For example, a key provision (Article XII, section 2) is that the Administrator should “divest itself of either the operations of Registry or its Registar operations”. In reality, the PH Administrator has no equity in the Registry or Registrar operation. Never had, and never will! So theoretically, even if we wanted to comply with the Guidelines, we can’t!
The message here is that if Mr. Pena wanted to solve problems, he would have involved us in the making of the Guidelines. But we weren’t invited to the Advisory Board meetings. All the papers we painstakingly submitted during the public hearings went unanswered.
See March 31, 2004
Feb 5, 2004
It’s really unfortunate. As a result , Mr. Pena has approved a set of Guidelines that are not only erroneous, but - if implemented - will substantially weaken the PH Domain, rather than strengthen it.
Update: I’ve also just had a conversation today with Mr. Pena, where he absolutely refused to discuss amending the Guidelines and repeatedly threatened to redelegate. So I guess the die is cast….
Previous Comments
FYI, .com domains are sold and registered only for the average price of $15/year. I think $35 is too much for a one year domain registration.
Posted by bloodred at January 24, 2005, 1:16 pmCTCD.com sells .ph domains for $30 on a yearly basis. Dot.PH sells them at $70 for a minimum of two years (i.e. $35/yr). A lot of international resellers and registrars like GoDaddy, NameCheap, OnlineNIC, and RegisterFly sells CNO (.com, .net, .org) domains for as low as $6 to $10 a year. Where did you get the survey that CNO domains are still $35 a piece?
Posted by Abe Olandres at January 24, 2005, 4:21 pmI think having a registrar managing the sole registry of .ph is not conducive for dynamic or creative pricing and at same time gives limited or no room for competition. It is like a dictatorship if you really think about it. Technical aspects is not important in this issue because the technology has matured in terms of managing domains so anybody with the right know how can do it. It’s is really all about the money that Disini don’t want to relinquish his hold but he has no choice. It’s not up to 1 person or organization to steer the course of the basic vehicle for developing the internet infrastructure of the country. Please don’t spill over the bad things that has already engulfed much of the Philippine society into the Philippine cyberspace. Let go because it’s the right thing to do and you know that.
Posted by baron at January 24, 2005, 10:39 pmHi Jed, I read the article on the inquirer. I responded to it. I hope it gets published. Here’s my response:
Dear Editor,
There is nothing wrong with dotph being both a registrar and a registry of for the .ph domains. I see no rationale for Mr. Pena of the government Commission on Information and Communications Technology (CICT) to force Mr. Jose Emmanuel Disini to relinquish the latter’s proprietorship of dotph. The prices of domains are driven by market forces. There are, for example, domains that sell for as much as 200 US Dollars because of the market demand for nice names. If Mr. Pena wants to be a registrar, he could simply submit his application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers (ICANN). If CICT wants to file a complaint, it should file it with the ICANN. There is nothing anomalous with dotph. It is a registar accredited by the ICANN. Perhaps, Mr. Pena just does not understand the technology of domains and the way domains are governed. If the CICT has objections to the way dotph is running its business, I urge the CICT to make public their objections. I work in the IT industry and it irritates me to learn that the government bureaucracy stifles IT businesses with absurd demands not knowing the issues involved, thus making a fool out of themselves.
Carlo Florendo
Alumnus
Department Of Computer Science
UP Diliman
Jed,
I run a local web hosting company (plogHost.com). I even had a talk with one of your account managers, Wilma, about being a partner since we are already partnered with OnlineNIC to resell CNO domains for about Php600 (~$11).
If you want to talk about convenience, our clients can even call us in the middle of the night and even on weekends if they have problems with their domain/hosting while concerns with dot.ph are only address during office hours.
We have had over 500 registered domains already and only about 10 of them are actually .ph domains. We cannot market .ph domains as against CNO domains for the sheer and obvious difference in pricing (almost triple) without any obvious benefits.
If you target SMEs as your market for registering domains, then I’d like to inform you they don’t even care about getting a .ph domain if compared to CNO domains. A quick check at our list of clients showed that over 80% of SMEs would rather get mycompanyPH.com instead of mycompany.com.ph — a sure indication that you failed to reach your intended market.
We have also been asking your office for the possibility of having domain transfers but your account managers tell me that it is not possible. Obviously, it’s not really possible to transfer domains since there’s no other real domain Registrar to transfer to.
Posted by Abe Olandres at January 25, 2005, 11:42 ami.ph is just a subdomain. we give out subdomains for free.
i meant tranferring Registrar and not transferring Registrant. It’s like transferring your domain account from Network Solutions to OnlineNIC. I actually called up CTCD to tell them that I had domains registered in dot.PH and wanmted to transfer control of it to CTCD but they said it was not possible. I called up your account manager Wilma and asked her the same and she said it’s not possible.
when you refer to your target SMEs, are you referring to those big companies that can afford huge newpaper, TV and billboard ads like bench, sykes, rockwell, jobsdb? The SMEs that we refer to are those who are new entreprenurs and business which I believe comprise the bigger piece of the pie.
if you say that you can actually sell directly to the consumer at $15, why not sell them at that rate then? You already said it yourself… if your sales would grow by lowering them to the same rate as CNOs, you’d be willing to take the step.
Well, why not try to sell them at $8 a pop and see how the market will react? Who knows, you might sell as much as 1 million domains this year?
Posted by abe olandres at January 27, 2005, 2:03 pmhi jed,
before i.ph came out, we were already actually thinking of offering almost the same service under the domain name me.ph (yourname.me.ph) where people can get their own subdomain FREE for life and just pay for the hosting.
my point here is that, it’s very hard for us to promote .ph domains when it is clearly much more expensive than the CNOs.
well maybe someday, when your company has had about .ph 1M domains registered, you’ll consider lowering the prices down a bit.
cheers!
Posted by Abe Olandres at January 27, 2005, 6:49 pmHi again jed,
seriously, can you do something about my request for transfer of domain administration from dot.ph to ctcd? That’s what i really wanted for the longest time. I don’t want to leave them and all i wanted was to be able to manage my domains in one account. besides, dot.ph does not have the same payment convenience of using PayPlus.
When we initially had to go to dot.ph to register domains, we had to send someone to your office and pay there. When we asked for a cash pickup, your office said they don’t pick up cash and only checks which only adds to the delay in completing the registration process.
Posted by Abe Olandres at January 27, 2005, 6:55 pm.ph is an official PH domain, such as com.ph, net.ph, org.ph, and .ph. Japan, for example, has co.jp, ac.jp, or.jp, ne.jp as well as the flat .jp domain. HK has com.hk, net.hk, org.hk as well as .HK.
Waaah, why is there a fee for a subdomain? And by the way, according to our cisco class, i.ph may ba an official .ph domain but it is not an official top level domain, as stated in the internic website. The only very official top level domains I know of are: .com, .net, .org, .edu, .info, .aero, .name, .museum, .biz, .coop, and .pro, and it may or it may not be followed by a ccTLD. The name before it as we were taught is the domain, and before it is the subdomain. Subdomain is usually free since its unlimited. In i.ph, “i” is not an official TLD, therefore having an “i” account is just the same as having a subdomain… Am I correct or I don’t just listen to our lectures carefully 
??
If i.ph is on the same level as a .com.ph, .net.ph and .org.ph, then why the difference in pricing? They should all be $3.75 as you stated earlier. Then, it is also possible for you to create a.ph, b.ph, c.ph … z.ph and sell them at $3.75 just like i.ph!
What is the responsibility of Dot.ph as a registrar? Don’t you make your clients sign a contract that the registration shall be revoked if they commit fraud in their .ph sites?
A .ph registered domain plagiarized my site and I wrote to dot.ph. And how convenient that all your people said was they couldn’t do anyhing about it.
Posted by Sassy at February 15, 2005, 3:06 pmJed,
I’m now confused with terms such as Administrator, Registry & Registar. But it looks like you are in one way or another involved in all 3 positions. What I understand from the motive of CICT is to split this role from one person/group so we can have a check and balance. Imagine what one person can do if he is the President, Chief Justice and Speaker of the House.
I read somewhere that you can now register and renew .ph domains on a yearly basis. If this is true, then your system (domains.ph domain manager) does not yet provide for it. I’m about to renew a domain for a client and it still requires me another 2 years payment to do it. I wanted to call up customer support but it’s a Saturday and nobody’s around.
Posted by Abe Olandres at February 19, 2005, 12:09 pmSure am glad I cam across this blog. Otherwise I would have never known about the NEW version of the XML API that is supposed to be available. We were told that the current API did NOT support transfers and we had to move to their Private Label web site. Of course that is NOT an option for us as we are a full service domain reseller with our own servers etc. and have no need for a cookie cutter reseller web site. We will be contacting Wilma to check on this ASAP. Because currently as Joel stated the only way to transfer a domain to CTCD is to pay dotPH for another 2 years which to me is CRAZY!
Posted by Roy Harding at February 20, 2005, 1:53 pmYes, I am able to do an annual renewal at ctcd.com but my domain is still with domains.ph and I want to transfer it to ctcd and renew it for 1 year only. I read thru the FAQ of domains.ph and there’s no mention of that. I called up last Saturday and nobody was answering from customer service.
Posted by yuga at February 21, 2005, 12:14 pmSo, is it possible we pay your Registrar Channel (ctcd.com) the 2 years renewal and then DotPH delegates the domain to them?
Here’s the gist. If we renew the domain via CTCD, we pay them Php 3,020 (Php1,510 x 2 years) but if we renew it via DotPH, we pay $70 (Php3,850). Clearly, we are able to get a cheaper rate via CTCD. How come that is not possible?
IMHO, it;s the same thing (win-win situation) — ctcd sells a new domain thru us, and they inpart pay you their rate for the domain you delegated to them.
The thing here is that we have been transferring in CNO domains hundreds of times now and this is possible — we pay the new Registrar for the renewal and not the old one.
Posted by Abe Olandres at February 21, 2005, 4:31 pmHello Roy!
Glad you have joined us here! I have been contacting your support people about the domain transfers I have been dying to do since a month ago! I have domains due to renew in 2 days and I wnat them transferred to you guys asap! Please do help me in resolving this issue. Many thanks!
Posted by Abe Olandres at March 1, 2005, 12:07 pmHi Abe,
It turns out that the current API does NOT support transfers contrary to what was mentioned earlier. We are going to work with the dot.PH people to get something in place for you now. Glenda should be in touch with you soon with a solution. Once the API is ready for transfers we will update our site to take advantage of this.
Thanks,
Roy Harding
Hi Roy,
Just some clarifications regarding your transfer concerns. The existing API allows you to process transfers. We’ve sent you the docs to Glenda so you can write code to allow your clients to transfer their domains right from your site.
All they need to do is provide the necessary information (to verify ownership of domain) by entering it onto your site. It gets sent to our backend and, if it checks out, all you have to do is approve the transfer. The renewal fee goes to you, not to dotPH, so you earn from the transfer.
WilmaB
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