Domain name registrations in Portugal’s ccTLD grew by over one fifth in 2020, with a new record of 96,715 new registrations in .pt, 18,020 more than in 2019, which represents a growth of 22.9% and makes 2020 the best ever.
DNS.PT has been active in recent weeks with a few announcements about a new mobile phone app, conclusion of KSK and ZSK rollover and joining the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Centre anti-piracy campaign. They have also joined an initiative with the Portuguese National Cybersecurity Center (CNCS-PT) to promote a more secure Portuguese internet.
The Portuguese ccTLD .pt had its best quarter ever in the first quarter of 2018 with 44,782 new domain names registered, while April continued the impressive registration figures with 9,010 new registrations, one of the best months in recent years.
The results took .pt registrations past the 1.1 million registrations mark and according to DNS.PT, this growth is the result of âan associative and multiparticipated governance modelâ with the government, consumers, registrars and academy all participating allowing for a more efficient, flexible and inclusive management of the Internet community in Portugal. DNS.PT also notes Portuguese people and businesses have shown a greater preference for their own country code top level domain.
According to Luisa Gueifão, Chairman of the DNS.PT Association’s Board of Directors, the results show the commitment of the Association DNS.PT in the management, maintenance and registration of the national top-level domain. “Since Associação DNS.PT assumed the role of the Portuguese ccTLD registry, .PT has been one of the three fastest growing domains in Europe. Last year the growth was 12% compared to the European scenario of 4%, so the good performance and experience makes DNS.PT a reference that serves as a model and inspiration for many other European countries”.
Luisa Gueifão also highlights the role that Association DNS.PT has been playing in the promotion of the Internet and the digital economy in Portugal. “Our focus is increasingly directed to digital skills programs. We have created and supported numerous projects that contribute to the increase of the digital literacy levels and to combat info-exclusion and digital divide. It is fundamental to think about the Internet without forgetting the people”.
Canadaâs ccTLD registry, the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), has now added .sx (Sint Maarten) to its Fury Registry Platform. CIRA has been on a bit of a âacquisitionâ role recently with this weekâs adding to a number of similar recent announcements.
Wednesdayâs announcement says SX Registry SA, who operates the .SX country code top level domain on behalf of the Sint Maarten government, is now running on CIRAâs Fury Registry Platform.
âWhile we chose the Fury platform due to its advanced features and stability, what truly amazed me was how seamless the migration was,â said Normand Fortier, CEO, SX Registry SA. âAs a business person and especially as a registry, I cannot afford downtime, and the CIRA transition team exceeded my most optimistic expectations.â
CIRA describes their Fury Registry Platform as a next-generation TLD management platform with features and functionality designed for the modern TLD business. Fury features a modern interface with role-based access to key registry functions that provide flexibility in pricing, promotion, and domain management to help operators run their business and grow their registry.
Another of the benefits that CIRA touts is Furyâs tags featureâan industry firstâenables operators to apply advanced business rules to individual domains or domain groupings to make adjustments to pricing and promotions in real-time.
The migration to Fury took less than 30 days, and was executed seamlessly by the CIRA transition team. Another to have migrated to Fury was .KIWI who adopted the platform last year.
âWe developed the Fury Registry Services Platform with the flexibility and agility to manage any modern TLD business,â said Dave Chiswell, Vice President of Product Development, CIRA. âThe TLD market is rapidly evolving, and accompanied by the support of CIRA, the FURY platform provides operators with a set of next-generation tools to compete and win.â
The consolidation of registry services is a bit of a global trend as registry operators look for partners to provide services rather than provide bespoke services every time. CIRA has been aggressive in seeking partners and in late October announced Uniregistry and SIDN had signed on to receive CIRAâs D-Zone DNS services for their TLDs. These announcements have followed announcements in February of 2 other joint ventures with the New Zealand and Portuguese ccTLD registries, InternetNZ and Associação DNS.PT, to deliver Anycast DNS services.
Domain Pulse has previously reported of SIDN who manages the .nl (Netherlands) ccTLD with more than 5.7 million domains under management, has itself been branching into other services. Speaking at the Domain Pulse conference in Vienna in February SIDNâs Michiel Henneke said the registry has been experimenting with opportunities in similar areas.
âDNS is required for e-billing so SIDN became a co-creator of a DNS billing service in the Netherlands, but there are few other markets that are as attractive when it comes to revenue as domain names and the e-billing service is just a small part of revenue. Weâve also taken over an e-identity company with 12 million users, so we believe this will be a significant contributor to future revenue.â
The top level domain business continues to consolidate as registry operators look for partners to provide services rather than provide bespoke services every time. One of those registries that has recently been aggressive in seeking partners is CIRA, the registry operator for the Canadian ccTLD, who this week announced Uniregistry and SIDN have signed on to receive CIRAâs D-Zone DNS services for their TLDs.
Both partnerships were announced at the ICANN public meeting currently underway in Abu Dhabi and follows the announcement in February of two other joint ventures with the New Zealand and Portuguese ccTLD registries, InternetNZ and Associação DNS.PT, to deliver Anycast DNS services.
SIDN who manages the .nl country code top level domain (ccTLD) for the Netherlands, with more than 5.7 million domains under management, has itself been branching into other services. Speaking at the Domain Pulse conference in Vienna earlier this year SIDNâs Michiel Henneke said the registry has been experimenting with opportunities in similar areas.
âDNS is required for e-billing so SIDN became a co-creator of a DNS billing service in the Netherlands, but there are few other markets that are as attractive when it comes to revenue as domain names and the e-billing service is just a small part of revenue. Weâve also taken over an e-identity company with 12 million users, so we believe this will be a significant contributor to future revenue.â
Uniregistry, the other partner, operates .ky, the Cayman Islands ccTLD, along with 25 new generic top level in domains (gTLDs) in the global marketplace, including .link, .game, .mom and .photo.
The CIRA D-Zone Anycast DNS that the registries have signed up to use is built for resilience with a strong footprint at each node across a global, well-peered network that is recognized as best-in-class by some of the most discriminating buyers in the industry.
CIRAâs solution started with the needs of the .CA TLD at its heart, and is now finding great partners around the world who are committed to building a better internet for their users.
Establishing one or more secondary DNS footprints is considered an internet infrastructure best-practice that can help to mitigate the risks posed by DDoS that increasingly focus on DNS providers, where they can do the most damage. The DNS is fundamental to ensuring that websites, email, and web applications remain online and optimized for performance.
The Canadian ccTLD manager has announced two joint ventures this week with New Zealand and Portugal’s ccTLD registries to deliver Anycast DNS services.
The joint venture with New Zealand’s ccTLD augments .nz’s DNS infrastructure with a global network of nodes and peering to over 2,300 networks. As part of this deal, CIRA and NZRS will also be working together to build a new Pacific node for CIRA’s Anycast cloud.
“In selecting DNS hosting providers, NZRS looks for providers with deep DNS expertise who are committed to building a world class network and can provide a global reach for the .nz TLD,” said Jay Daley, CEO at NZRS Ltd. “In CIRA we see an organisation that not only amply demonstrated this but also shares our vision of building a better Internet.”
For the Portuguese ccTLD, CIRA’s D-Zone Anycast DNS instantly augments .pt’s DNS architecture, adding new global nodes and comprehensive global peering with over 2,300 networks.
CIRA’s D-Zone for TLDs service offers advanced query monitoring and reporting that enables ccTLDs to access packet capture (PCAP) data for expanded analysis and R&D projects.
D-Zone was built to sustain the performance and resiliency standards of the .CA domain name space, and as such is well-suited for modern ccTLD and gTLD businesses.
“The ccTLD community, and in particular .PT, is driven by a common objective of improving the global Internet and ensuring the safety and security of the global domain name system,” said Luisa Gueifão, Chair of the board of directors at Associação DNS.PT. “This partnership with CIRA give us an excellent tool to contribute to respond to new global cybersecurity threats, scaling our DNS architecture to meet the needs of a growing global domain name.”
These announcements follow news two weeks from DENIC the .de registry, that EURid was now its largest customer for the shared use of its global anycast mesh. DENIC now provides DNS slave services covering some 6.5m domains for seven TLD clients, in addition to running its own .de nameservice for more than 16.1m DUM, this way increasing its contribution for the security and stability of the Internet as a whole.
And they follow concerns by a number of ccTLD managers of where their next growth is to come from, a topic of discussion at the Domain Pulse conference in Vienna in February. Domain name registration growth has been fairly static for a few years now, as outlined in a CENTR report presented at the conference. So some country code top level domain registries are looking for new business opportunities outside their own market. SIDN, the .nl registry, has expanded by co-creating a DNS billing service in the Netherlands and taking over an e-identity company with 12 million users. Others, such as the Austrian ccTLD registry nic.at, have set up as new generic Top Level Domain registries
In an attempt to make .PT domain names more accessible, the Foundation for National Scientific Computing, has announced changes to registration policies to take place on 1 March. The changes mean anyone can register a domain for the Portuguese ccTLD and registrants will no longer have to be associated with a brand or company.
âThis is a goal for which the Foundation has been working long and we finally have the approval of the proposed liberalisation from the General Council. We hope that this liberalisation will result in an increase in the number of people who choose to have a .PT address instead of registering foreign and generic top domains,â said Pedro Veiga, president of the Foundation.
There will also be a “Sunrise” period from 1 March for 60 days to allow public companies, companies, brand names, establishment, logos, copyright and professional names, literary or artistic to register their .PT domain and defend their established rights.
For the .PT registration, the domain only will have to be delegated in the .PT area and be technically associated with a primary name server, correctly installed and configured.
To register your .PT domain name, check out Europe Registry here.
The Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN), the .PT manager, is organising a series of DNSSEC workshops between 14 September and 16 November.
The workshops will be aimed at sectors such as banking, public administration and judicial bodies who stand to benefit from the introduction of DNSSEC and will aim to promote and inform of the importance of DNSSEC while ensuring the integrity and security of data on the internet.
For more information in Portuguese, see the DNS.PT website here.
To register your .PT domain name, check out Europe Registry here.
As of 1 July, DNS.PT, the .PT (Portugal) registry, introduced new rules to simplify the registration rules and reduce prices, among other changes.
The changes apply to com.pt and org.pt names and include:
For more information and the new terms and conditions in full, see dns.pt.
To register your .PT domain name, check out Europe Registry here.