New CIRA Registry Opens for .ca Domain Name Registrations November 1
Ottawa, October 24, 2000 00The new system for .ca domain name registration to be operated by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) will commence operation in two phases, the first commencing on November 1, 2000.
The first phase will enable Canadians who already have .ca domain names additional time to re-register in the new CIRA Registry. As of October 23, 2000, over 22,000 requests for re-registration of existing .ca domain names have been submitted to the CIRA Registry. There are about 100,000 domain names registered in the University of British Columbia (UBC) registry.
00he new CIRA Registry is important to Canadians and we want to give those who currently have .ca domain names every opportunity to re-register before the anticipated flood of requests for new registrations,00says Maureen Cubberley, Chair, CIRA Board.
Although CIRA will reserve domain names already registered in the UBC system until January 31, 2001 so that no one else can obtain those names during this transitional period, the failure to re-register a domain name before November 1, 2000 will result in a website or email address being inaccessible through the domain name until the name is re-registered in the CIRA Registry and activated by CIRA.
The second phase, which starts on November 8, 2000, will enable those who meet the Canadian Presence Requirements to register new domain names in the .ca Registry. 00eferring the second phase by a few days will make the transition from the UBC system to the new CIRA Registry more orderly,00says Glen Bloom, Vice-Chair, CIRA Board. 00ew applicants will not be disadvantaged by the phasing because the first phase will only permit the re-registration of domain names already in the UBC registry. In any event, existing names are protected against registration by someone other than the current registrant until January 31, 2001.00/font>
To re-register an existing .ca domain name or to request registration of a new name, it is necessary to retain a CIRA certified registrar. There are now about 40 certified registrars. The list of registrars and links to their sites are available at
