On Fri, Sep 15, 2000 at 04:00:17AM +0000, Michael Shields wrote:
> Let's suppose a domain was created October 1998. How do you know if
> it expires in October 2000, if it's been renewed through October 2002?
Nominet bills it's members on the 1st of each month for renewals. Thus,
an October 1998 domain will *not* have been renewed. You cannot renew for
anything but 2-yearly periods - i.e. you can't renew for 10 years or anything.
The way it works is thus:
Nominet sends a letter at the beginning of the previous month indicating
which domains are due for renewal the following month. A Nominet member
would then update the domains that he does not want to pay by de-tagging
(setting the Nominet tag to DETAGGED) or by setting the billing method
to 'bc' (billing contact) as opposed to the normal 'th' (tag holder
contact). The de-tag indicates the domain is no longer wanted, and the
change of payment to the billing contact indicates that Nominet should
contact the registrant directly for payment (of the direct fee which
is 80GBP - about 120$, isntead of the member fee which is 5GBP).
At the start of the next month an invoice is raised by Nominet for all
domains that are due to expire on that month for the particular tag
holder. In theory the ISP is at that point required to pay for all the
domains, but in practice you can return the invoice indicating which
domains you don't want to pay. This is usually because the de-tag or
change of billing method was done after the invoice was created by Nominet,
but before the actual date of renewal.
The issue is further complicated by the ISP not paying on time, by a
transfer of tag at or around invoicing time, etc. These are all admin
things that us poor ISPs have to cope with by ringing/faxing Nominet. The
plus side is that Nominet are never busy, will always speak to you, and
know what they're doing (contrast Network Solutions).
Unlike Internic domains, UK ones have to be actively removed from the
registry, the "default" action is that they are renewed.
How this all fits into OpenSRS would be interesting to know...
Best wishes, James
--
James Ponder; Oaktree/IS4B Ltd., (024) 7663 3177; http://www.squish.net/
