As a business, having a website to be able to continue operating during lockdown is vital.
Thankfully, starting a website is relatively inexpensive with a co.za, web.za, org.za and net.za domain registrations costing just R45 a year through bodies such as the ZACR and its registrars.
The trouble with that price is that it hasn’t changed since 2015 according to the ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA).
As such the ZADNA is currently engaging the industry to increase the annual registration and renewal fee of co.za, web.za, org.za and net.za domains. This is to keep up with inflation and insure that infrastructure of domain allocation remains operational.
While a fee increase is the obvious solution, ZADNA has said that perhaps other operational efficiencies can be explored so as not to push a price increase on customers.
“However,” states the ZADNA, “the fact that the current EEP [Extensible Provisioning Protocol] Wholesale Fee has remained unchanged since 2015 goes against economic realities of the increase in the cost of living and the cost of doing business. Retaining the current fee may also not take into consideration the increasing costs of managing the domain name infrastructure.”
The increase the ZADNA is asking for is actually rather low. The authority wants the fee to increase by R10 to R55 for domain registrations and annual renewals.
As part of this process, the ZADNA is asking for public participation and submissions, which must be made no later than Tuesday 30th June.
You can read the ZADNA’s proposal here.
While we do tend to agree that a R10 price increase to match inflation over the years is fair, we’re keen to see what sort of comments the ZADNA draws in this proposal.
For those who oppose or support this proposal we urge you to submit comments before the deadline.
Source: (https://www.htxt.co.za/)
