Why use ccTLDs? [was: Re: Turkey has switched Root-Servers]

Wed Sep 28 03:42:50 UTC 2005

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Robert Boyle wrote:

>
> At 10:39 PM 9/27/2005, you wrote:
>> Actually, I think you've got it backwards. .us and all of the other
>> country-specific TLDs are the last vestiges of nationalism.  The
>> Internet is only the second piece of truly global infrastructure.  As
>> a key component in the ongoing trend towards a unified global
>> administration, we should do what we can to encourage cooperation and
>> equality across borders, not intensify their differences.
>
> Well said! Other than government entities, I never understood why anyone 
> would want a country specific name. Tellurian Networks provides the same 
> services to our clients in AU as we do to those in DE and PK and those in the 
> US of course (where we are located.) I don't want 200+ domain names and I 
> don't think Cisco, Sun, Microsoft, or any other companies do either. When I 
> look for a company, I don't care or need to know where they are located most 
> of the time - unless I am ordering a pizza, but that is a different story... 
> Communities of interest - such as my personal favorite 356registry.org are 
> global in scope and by their very nature! My $0.02 and contribution to the 
> non operational noise on nanog today.

A few issues:

There are a lot of parts of the world that don't have very good external 
connectivity.  ccTLDs often have local servers in the locations they're 
supposed to serve.  .Com's footprint is somewhat limited [1].  If you're 
on one end of a flaky satellite link, and those you are trying to 
communicate with are on the same end of that flaky satellite link, but 
you're trying to use a DNS zone that's served from something on the other 
end of the satellite link, that's not going to work all that reliably.

ccTLDs often allow people to get their domains from a local organization 
which speaks the local language, accepts the local currency, and charges a 
locally affordable amount.  $15 per year sounds cheap in the US (or in 
Germany, for that matter), but there are places where that's a lot of 
money.

Location-based domains can also separate out the trademark space. 
Businesses with the same name in completely different markets generally 
don't conflict, but do if they're both trying to share the .com namespace.

[1]: .Com is served from three locations in DC/Northern Virginia, Miami, 
Los Angeles, Seattle, the SF Bay Area, Atlanta, Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore, 
Amsterdam, Stockholm, and London.

-Steve