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Somalia government seeks control of .so domain

By Rebecca Wanjiku , IDG News Service , 11/06/2008
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The interim government of Somalia has applied to the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) seeking to regain control of the .so domain.

The government approached the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) for help in regaining control of the domain, which has a registered office in the U.S. but is currently not operational.

As the ITU does not run the registries, the organization has enlisted Jim Reid, founder of RTFM, to help Somalia transfer control of the domain to its Telecommunications Ministry.

"The process could take days, weeks or months; it depends on the workload of IANA staff," Reid said.

"It is unlikely that IANA will ignore a request from a sovereign government," he noted. "The organization in the U.S. will have to prove that it has permission from the Somali government to run the domain."

In reviving the domain operations, Reid said he has spoken with friends and has managed to get secondary name servers scattered around the world to host for at least two years until the situation is assessed. The servers are hosted in Australia, Canada, Japan, Singapore, Sweden and the U.S.

Somalia has been torn by civil war for 17 years, so there is no Internet Society chapter in the country.

Ahmed Ugas, chairman of the Somali ICT Development Association, recognized that the country faces communication challenges but noted that it is on the path of recovery.

"This is good progress," Ugas said of Reid's work. "It is important that the domain gets operational; then organizations can start using it."

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Comments (7)
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I will replace techsiti.com into techsiti.soBy Anonymous on November 11, 2008, 7:59 amreally very happy to have our domain back and hope my site to get position in .so registration center. i will keep going with the information about .so till it gets...

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It is good to hear that Somalia will have its domain...By Anonymous on November 8, 2008, 5:45 amIt is good to hear that Somalia will have its domain. Hope all businesses will have their domains under the new domain

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good decisionBy Anonymous on November 7, 2008, 12:24 pmthis is a good step by the government. slowly somalia can be on the world map again

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SO DOMAIN, A GOOD NEWSBy Anonymous on November 7, 2008, 7:12 amSomalia reserves every right to retain it's domain name, which it will succeed sooner than later. And those saying the TFG has no legal authority over the ownership...

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www.somaligo.so no need for new ICT colonization to the nationa By Anonymous on November 7, 2008, 1:34 amI am very sorry for the people who registered the www.somaligo.so or the Somali Transtional Federel Government which has not authority to take over however, I will...

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