Apr 5, 07:16
Dot AE domain names
In the last 13 months, we had the chance to work on 18 “.ae” domains, in which we registered six of them. At dots & lines, we sometimes take the liberty of deciding domain names, and 90% of the time we’re the hosting mediators too. So that involves us in selecting the best suiting hosting and sometimes the e-mail plans for our clients. With 18 domain names, only 3 domain names out of the 12 worked seamlessly when DNS records needed to change and those were the ones for large corporates who had an Etisalat account-manager in their disposal.
The Experience
While reviewing our work from last year, the “.ae” records kept us skeptical on going with the UAE choice over and over again since “.ae” domains can not be modified by third-parties who are not associated with the person/company who registered the domains.
This is a typical drill, a client has a domain name registered by either a direct domain name registration or a domain name that came free of charge while purchasing a Business-One service from Etisalat. Client needs a website, so we get involved, next, we need to host their website thus, need to update some DNS records which can only be changed by the client or a person who registered it. By either e-mail or fax, and only from the same addresses filled in the registration fields. Our roll has always been preparing the letters sending to clients, and then letting them know who to send the letters to, and god forbid something goes wrong, it has to happen again, that is two more days of delay and that’s if the request was taken care of immediately.
Unlike .com/.net/.org that could be all modified in an online app, “.ae” DNS, A-Records should be changed by either sending e-mails or faxes to UAE-NIC in which lately had been a 10 days work.
Changes that affected UAE NIC
I can’t recall having any issues with “.ae” domains before du was formed and before the formation of TRA which took UAE NIC away from Etisalat’s control and made it into an independent body, causing UAE NIC slowness caused by maybe understaffed team or just a restructuring procedure that is complicating the communications with UAE NIC.
My findings are, NIC is really understaffed, and to be honest, while the NIC clients work from 9 to 6, I can’t understand how NIC gets to wrok from 8 to 3? Hoping for a quick change, soon, “.ae” has finally become popular for UAE businesses and it’s not the right time for a huge mess-up, hope someone would hear us out.
The coming soon story
While seeing the coming soon banners on UAENIC homepage for online-services gives us hope every time we search or check for a domain name availablility it is getting a little out of hand as how clients demand do not match the quality of UAENIC time frames and services.
Please share if you’ve been in our shoes too, it’s important, we can make a change, let us hear you out.
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