On 3 February 2010 the Firmbook portal held an online conference “TLD .РФ as the new dimension OF INTERNET in russia”. trends and outlooks
Leading Internet experts Andrey Kolesnikov, Director of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU, Alexey Koroluyk, member of an ad-hoc group on development of the domain name registration procedures in the Cyrillic ccTLD .РФ and General Director of REG.RU Company, Alexander Levashov, Director of CNews portal, Gizbert Mrozek, Editor-in-Chief of www.aktuell.ru / www.moskau.ru, and Ilia Alexeev, Development Director, “Comandir.taxi” Company went online to answer the Internet audience’s questions.
Andrey Kolesnikov briefed on first results of the priority reservation in ccTLD .РФ, has made public dates when TLD .РФ would be put in service and answered the Internet users’ questions on second-level domain names registration in TLD .РФ.
“Our application for registration of the Cyrillic ccTLD .РФ has been accepted by the ICANN,” said Mr. Kolesnikov, “which means that now we have to pass only technical procedure of domain delegation at the IANA. We do not set a deadline for this procedure – it is up to IANA. However, usually putting a domain on the root servers takes several months. In other words, we expect that TLD .РФ will be delegated to Russia as early as March - early April 2010.”
The audience raised questions about an alleged second-level domain name “гарант-парк-телеком.рф” functioning in the test mode. The users came to believe TLD .рф had started operating. As Mr. Kolesnikov explained, “the domain has started operating only in the test mode. Practically, TLD .рф does not exist as yet. How can second-level domains fully function in it? It is expected that the test mode will last through the delegation of TLD .рф. That is to say, in order to be able to see domain гарант-парк-телеком.рф, one has to manually adjust his/her DNS-server.”
Yet again there have been questions regarding users’ keenness about the Cyrillic country code domain. Mr. Kolesnikov noted, “Time will decide. I can not say for sure whether TLD .рф is bound for popularity. But I think it will be. It is connected with peculiarities of our language. We have learnt to speak, read and write in Russian. We think in Russian. That’s the basic framework.”
As a member of the ad-hoc group on the development of the domain name registration procedures in TLD .рф, Alexey Koroluyk answered questions regarding domain name registration in TLD .рф.
He clarified all controversies around the priority reservation in the new TLD and elaborated on the registration procedures therein. “Development of the registration Terms and Conditions is a milestone, and we tackled the problem with a great deal of responsibility”, said Mr. Koroluyk. “Procedures have turned out to be really impressive. They have been developed by a team of pros, repeatedly discussed with state officials and the Internet community and approved by the CC’s Council.” As for the envisaged demand for the new IDN-TLD, Mr. Koroluyk noted, “Already today, 2 thousand-plus new domain names in TLD .RU have got the RF key in their names. This fact signifies that the future .РФ zone even now has .RU projection, which directly references to the future demand.”
During the final stage of the Internet conference the REG.RU staff arranged an online consultation on TLD .рф, and the Internet users could ask any specific question on the subject, including how, where, and when it will be possible to register a given domain, whether it complies requirements with the Cyrillic domains, among others.
The full version of the online conference can be seen at:
part 1
part 2
