The .ZA Domain Name Authority (ZADNA) has commenced a review of the Extensible Provisioning Protocol (EPP) and the Co.za legacy Wholesale Fees. As part of the review, ZADNA believes it is important to consult widely to be better informed of the needs of the industry and users.
ZADNA is encouraging members, .ZA Second Level Domain (SLD) Registry Operators, .ZA Registrars, Registrants, the South African Internet community and the South African public to submit comments and/or proposals regarding the review of the EPP and the .co.za Legacy Wholesale Fees that applies to .co.za, .net.za, .org.za and .web.za SLDs.
The fees under review are the fee ZADNA charges to registrars for EPP, which from 2015 has been R45.00 and the .co.za legacy wholesale fee which in 2015 was R90.00 and has increased by R10.00 each year until 2019 to R130.00.
In a consultation paper ZADNA gives reasons for and against increasing the EPP fee given increases in the cost of living but that it may go against the South African Government’s efforts to reduce the costs to communicate.
Regarding the wholesale or registry fee charged for using the .co.za Legacy System, which is operationally more expensive to operate than the EPP registry system, has gradually increased since 2015. In the consultation paper, the South African country code top-level domain (ccTLD) registry operator explains “the logic behind the gradual annual increase in the .co.za Legacy Wholesale fee was to gradually phase the Legacy System out. The ultimate goal of the increasing Legacy Wholesale Fee is to compel the migration of all remaining Co.za registrations in the Legacy System to the EPP system.”
“The gradual increase in Co.za Legacy System Wholesale Fee has resulted in a gradual decline in the number of Legacy registrations. To date, only around 30,000 Legacy registrations remain, which accounts for 2.5% of the total registrations in Co.za.”
“In view of the Legacy System being more expensive to maintain, it seems more sensible to completely phase it out so that all registrations are migrated to the EPP system. Such a move will make it unnecessary for there to be 2 types of Wholesale Fees. Another approach could be to continue increasing the Legacy Fee to compel further migration of registrations to EPP system.”
The consultation phase runs until 30 June. More information is available here [pdf].