The Vietnam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC) has allocated 126,000 domains over the last week, since it began to offer free registration of domain names in the Vietnamese language, which is 17 times higher than the total number of Vietnamese domain names allocated in the last four years.

50,000 domain names registered per day

After more than four years since the day Vietnamese domain names were officially granted into the community, under the mode of allocating together with traditional domain names in March 2007, the number of Vietnamese domain names has reached 8000, but only 3600 domain names are still in use.

However, just over the last week, since the free registration mechanism was applied (April 28, 2011), VNNIC has allocated 126,000 Vietnamese domain names, according to Tran Minh Tan, Deputy Director of VNNIC. The figure has put Vietnam into the top five of the countries which have the highest numbers of domestic domain names in the world.

Also according to Tan, the time when VNNIC witnessed the higher number of successful registrations of Vietnamese domain names was the afternoon of April 29, and morning of April 30, when about 50,000 domain names were allocated per day.

Free domain names in the Vietnamese language now are given to any Vietnamese and foreign organizations and individuals on a “first come first served” basis.

“Registrations were made at any time of day. Especially, the number of registrations at nights was not lower than the number in daytime. Domain names were granted every second,” Tan said.

In the next days, the registrations continued with 1-2 connections per hour. However, it happened that different organizations registered the same domain names; therefore, the number of successful registrations decreased. For example, on May 5 and 6, VNNIC could only grant 25,000 new Vietnamese domain names.

Replying to the criticism that the registration of Vietnamese domain names sometimes got stuck due to the bad preparations of VNNIC, Tan said that though VNNIC anticipated the high number of registrations, the expectation of the community was too large which exceeded the allocated bandwith of VNNIC. However, VNNIC later has improved the server system and re-allocated the bandwith to settle the situation.

As for “sensitive” domain names, VNNIC will require the registrants to make a commitment to use the domain names for the right purposes. Besides, the registrants, who have registered domain names already, but cannot see the domain names in the list due to the errors of the registration system, can email to with documents attached, for consideration.

Vietnamese domain names becoming hot in the community

Tan said that the number of registered Vietnamese domain names has been increasing sharply because of the big significance of the domain names, as well as the willingness to create a purely Vietnamese environment on the Internet environment for Vietnamese people in Vietnam and foreign countries.

The support to the Vietnamese domain names provided by browsers has been relatively good, while the use value of the domain names are protected by the laws. Therefore, many people have registered Vietnamese domain names to have additional domain names which show to websites.

In the past, Vietnamese domain names were also allocated free of charge. However, the information was only accessed by small subjects who had traditional domain names already. Meanwhile, the majority in the community did not have good awareness about Vietnamese domain names. Experts believe that the free Web-Hosting service has also helped much in catching people’s attention.

According to FPT International Telecom, the fact that VNNIC changes the registration policy, allowing making online registrations has allowed people to register more easily. The good PR policy has also helped stimulate the curiosity of individual users.

However, experts still believe that many people would still prioritize using traditional domain names which have been recognized internationally.

Source: Buu dien