THE INTERNET GROWS UP: DOMAIN NAME SERVICES NO LONGER SUBSIDIZED BY
TAXPAYERS

As interest in the Internet rises beyond belief, the demand for domain
names has gone beyond the National Science Foundation's ability to
continue completely funding the service. Network Solutions, based in
Herndon Virginia, provides registration services for the non-military
portion of the Internet under its cooperative agreement with the NSF.

Domain names are Internet "addresses" -- and the registration process
creates a database which maps the names to the numbers used for Internet
routing. When Network Solutions began operation in spring of 1993, new
domains were being registered at a rate of 400 per month. In October 1994,
this number reached 2,000 per month and it is estimated that by the end of
the year, the figure will top 20,000 per month. This incredible demand has
created up to a five week delay in registering new domain names.

While the NSFNET, an Internet precursor, was created to serve the research
and academic community, currently less than three percent of domain names
are higher educational (.edu) or government (.gov) -- most are commercial
users (.com).

Effective September 14 , an annual fee of $50 will be charged for the
registration of second level domain name in each of the top level domains
maintained by Network Solutions (.edu, .gov, .com, .net,
org). (Examples of second-level domains include: nsf.gov, netsol.com,
mit.edu, aol.com.) New registrants will pay a $100 fee for a two- year
registration; and thereafter will pay $50 per year. Organizations
registered prior to September 14 will be charged the $50 annual fee on the
anniversary of their initial registration. The fees will be charged ONLY
to second-level domain name registrants in the five top level domains for
which the InterNIC provides registration services.

These fees do not affect the typical end-user who now subscribes through a
commercial service such as CompuServe, Prodigy and America Online nor will
they impact campus or business users who access a local network from their
desktop, dormatory or home. (Military addresses, identified by .mil, will
continue to be handled by a separate registration authority supported by
the Department of Defense.)

Consistent with its responsibility to support networking in the academic
research community, the National Science Foundation will continue to
defray the costs of registration in the .edu domain. NSF will also pay the
fees for current .gov registrants for on an interim basis to allow
government agencies time to identify an alternate source of funding.

"This system represents NSF's continued efforts to privatize the commercial
aspects of the ever-growing Internet, while still providing oversight and
supporting the research and academic community," said George Strawn,
director of the division of networking and communications research and
infrastructure. "It also addresses a pressing need as NSF funding for
domain name services expires October 1."

Funding obtained through the collection of fees represents another step in
the move to make the Internet self-supporting and less reliant on tax
dollars for support. In April, the NSF decommissioned the NSFNET and
instituted a new architecture provided by commercial companies.

Information about the fees has been posted on the Internet at URL (Uniform
Resource Locator): http//rs.internic.net/announcements/index.html.
 
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