On Tue, 18 Sep 2001, Bruce Tonkin wrote:

> Well I certainly doubt this.  I understand that Robert Elz delegated the
> administration of ".com.au" to Melbourne IT as a response to complaints from
> the business community (as represented in an article in the Financial
> Review) on the time taken to register a domain.  Melbourne IT then
> instituted a service level agreement for a 2 day turn around, with a fast
> turn around available at a higher fee.

Bruce, 

not meaning to nitpick (okay, meaning to nitpick :) but the original SLA
was I think 10 days std/2 days express.

> With regard to a monopoly, the operation of a domain name "registry" is a
> natural monopoly.

Wrong. Even though Melbourne IT might like the rest of us to believe that,
it's simply not the case. Observe the number of gTLD registrars, and see
the prices people can buy TLDs for. 

The *only reason* that Australian people can not get .com.au names more
cheaply is because Melbourne IT do not sell them more cheaply (and they
are under no obligation nor can they be pressured to do so, whilever there
is no competition).

> Melbourne IT currently provides equal access to its ".com.au" registry
> function for all domain name retailers at a wholesale price.  It also
> supports the principle of equal access going forward into the future as
> described in the competition panel report.

That's just plain balderdash. Melbourne IT has a *monopoly* (as opposed to
'equal access' :) over .com.au; and it wants the monopoly to remain;
because "no competition" is far more profitable than "competition".

Due to the policies that apply to .com.au there is a nontrivial staff
element which must be counted, but a *generous* estimate of the
cost-per-name on a biennial basis might be $20. Australian.

So was that wholesale price $25 ? $30 ?...

We understand this, but we do not accept it; which is why the subject of
competition keeps coming up. 

So who to believe ? Melbourne IT, who say their names are competitively
priced; or everybody else, who says they aren't; and that the only way to
get competitively-priced names is to introduce competition into the
namespace ?

"Work it out for yourselves"...

Regards,

Saliya

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