The administration of the PH cctld has long been criticized by some members of the Philippine Internet community. These critics have been involved in several attempts to redelegate the PH domain, claiming as their basis, the need for greater transparency, accountability, and community input in the way PH Domain Policy is created. The Whitepaper of the Philippine DomainName Authority Convenors (PhilDAC) can be found here (and in .doc format here and RTF here).

The Registry currently conducts online polls to solicit feedback from the community but its decision-making process is opaque. Ultimately, the domain administrator Mr Jose Emmanuel Disini makes all the policy decisions. Whether he makes those decisions for the good of the Philippine Internet community or, as his critics charge, for his own personal interests is subject to debate. Mr. Disini, however, is not accountable to anyone else for his policy decisions.

First of all, DotPH pricing at $35/year is the retail price. The wholesale price is a lot cheaper, and goes as low as $15/year, depending on your volume of registrations. This has been the case as far back as 2000, when very few ccTLDs were selling below the $35 level. The Registrar prices are located here:
http://www.domains.ph/PartnerApply.asp

As you can see, the discounts begin once you have at least 12 domains to register.

So it might make sense for some of you to join forces, and buy in bulk - so you can enjoy larger discounts - or work with one of our existing Registrars. We have over 150 Registrars - practically every ISP in the Philippines and Webhosting company is a Registrar. (Now whether they wish to pass on the discounts to you - that is entirely another matter).

Any feedback?

There are so many factors why the pricing has been stagnant for years…

First, PH is not the most expensive — .TV is $38, .JP is $99, .BE is $39, .AT is $79, .NZ is $69, .CC is $39. The CNO namespace is universal and the ccTLD is country specific, so we can’t really compare prices for the two considering the fact that volume of domains are way way apart. The best scale would be to compare PH pricing with other ccTLD pricing.

Second, supply and demand — will lowering the price assure increase in sales? That is, will cutting the price into 3 folds create enough demand to triple the sales volume (thereby maintaining gross revenue)? Remember, it is still a business. Take for example the local hosting industry. It’s really expensive compared to the rest in the US. Can we point to a local hosting company that can match the pricing of DreamHost, 1&1, Powweb, etc?

Third, target market — this is in conjunction with #2 actually. I was told a huge percentage of .PH domains are bought for branding and IP by big companies and corporations worldwide. These are in the tens of thousands of companies who want to claim ownership of their domain name before other squatters do. The logic goes like — if PH domain sells domains at $100, eBay, Microsoft will still buy the domain; same way that they’ll pay if the price was just $10. The question becomes, will all SMEs and individuals buy PH domains instead of a .COM despite these changes? There’s no assurance there.

Fourth, protecting the existing resellers. This I only realized when I became a reseller. Say Resellers get their PH domains at $25/year and sell them at $30 per year. It’s still lower than $70/2 years to entice customers to buy from the resellers and not directly from dotPH.

Lastly, and this one’s my theory, self-preservation. Look at Microsoft — it was able to maintain its dominance and success because it had something people needed and only Microsoft can provide.

Do those explanations make sense to you, DOTPH enthusiasts?

.COMs at least $10 /yr.
.PH are $35 /yr.

Is there something wrong here? Why are .PH domains still expensive?

What can YOU do about it? Would you celebrate or rant?