Frequently Asked Questions
What is domain DO?
Is there a fee to register a domain name for an organization?
Should the domain name be directly related to the physical location of the server (ie country)?
Can web space on an ISP have a domain name?
How long does it take for a domain name to be arranged once requested for?
Are domain names only granted to does already on the Internet?
What are the requirements for soliciting a domain name?
Are there any restrictions with respect to the nature of the domain name being requested?
How are requests approved?
1. What is domain DO?
Internet domain names are hierarchical, composed of character fields seperated by a "." character. Example: 11.22.33

The last field (.33 in the example above) is generally composed of two letters from the name of the country related to the domain name. The Dominican Republic's root domain name (the last field) is "DO."

Three world-wide organizations supervised by IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority). These organizations operate on a regional level, coordinating their operations with NIC's (Network Information Center) of their region. These organizations are:

InterNIC (Internet Network Information Center): administers domains in America, Africa and the Australian continent
APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Center) administers domains in Asia
RIPE-ncc (Investigation in Internet by European) administers domains in Europe

In Dominican Republic, PUCMM is the official NIC, delegated by InterNIC; thus any organization wishing to register in the domain DO must do so through PUCMM.

The penultimate field of the domain name (22) denotes the " type of institution ".

Generic types for the Dominican Republic are the following:

EDU General, nonformal education, institutions of investigation and/or of superior education
GOV Governmental agencies
COM Commercial organizations
ORG Non-profit organizations
SLD Health organizations
WEB Web service organizations
NET Internet Service Providers
MIL Military
ART Arts institutions

The field before the penultimate field of the domain name is the name, initials, or abreviation of the institution.

2. Is there a fee to register a domain name for an organization?
The tariff for the registry and maintenance for two years of any domian name is $USD 70.00 or $RD 1,750.00, and $USD 35.00 or $RD 875.00 per year for maintenance after the first two years of registration. To pay by bank transfer the following requirements must be followed: (1) aditional payment of $USD 10.00 for bank comission, (2) sending us the corresponding bank statement indicating for which domain name the payment was made. If these are not followed the domain will remain in a pending payment status. The payment must be made to the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra - RSTA.

The tariff of annual maintenance covers the maintenance with an existing domain (and therefore previously registered), by the period of a natural year (of the 1 of January to the 31 of December).

The maintenance includes all those updates or modifications in the data of the domain that are necessary and which ask for in agreement with the norms and established procedures. These modifications can be for example: Change of the people of administrative, technical contact or of finances, change of supplier and changes in the data associated to an active domain.

The received contributions exclusively will be used for the maintenance, updates or improvements of the equipment in good condition.

One would be due to pay by the allocation of domains? To see official notice of press of the National Science Foundation http://www.isoc.org/adopsec/nsf-name-fees.html.

3. Should the domain name be directly related to the physical location of the server (ie country)?
No, the server can be located in any country of the world.

4. Can web space on an ISP have a domain name?
Yes, this may be done by allowing the ISP to take control of the pretinent queries, although the owner of the web space can do this directly.

5. How long does it take for a domain name to be arranged once requested for?
It averages one (1) working day.

6. Are domain names only granted to does already on the Internet?
Yes, at the moment it is a requirement. PUCMM will not register the domain names without the submittion of atleast two host names (and their ip addresses) that will be used for domain name resolution. http://www.thelist.com, provides a list of several Internet Service Providers (ISP) and their respective services.

7. What are the requirements for soliciting a domain name?
a.- One must be connected to the Internet.

b.- One must have at least two (2) DNS name servers (primary and secondary), they must be apart from one anothermoved away. (See RFC 920 for details)

c.- We advise that the organization get help from another organization if it cannot maintain a seconday name server.

d.- The primary name server, which will take the zone of delegated authority, must be traceroute-able and respond to pings from ns.nic.do.

8. Are there any restrictions with respect to the nature of the domain name being requested?
Yes, the domain name should not coincide with any of the already existing domains under the same organization type. The organization or applicant is responsible for the verifying that no tradename laws are being violated. See RFC 1591 ftp://rs.internic.net/policy/rfc1591.txt. The name of the domain should not, by anyway, be obscene or slanderous. The recommended maximum character length for a domain name should not exceed 26, including the 5 characters used to identify the Top Level Domain root of the country (do) as well as those of organization type (com, edu, sld, gov, thousands, org, Web, net).

The domain name must be characters from the set: A-z, a-z and 0-9. The only acceptable special character is the script (-) and cannot be the first or last character of the domain name. The minimum character length for domain names is 2 characters, but 5 characters is recommended.

9. How are requests approved?
As soon as information is received from submittion forms, it is checked for veracity. Then an expedient is made for the registration of technical, general and billing information, aswell as administrative and technical contacts.




Registration Process
Intrests
Brief description of organization and/or intention(s) of applicant.

Organization Types
Generic types of domains:

EDU Academic organizations (higher education and research centers), nonformal, primary education and secondary schools
GOV Governmental institutions
COM Commercial organizations
SLD Institutions of health
ORG Nongovernmental institutions
NET Internet service providers (ISP)
WEB Web development and services
MIL Military institutions
ART Arts institutions
For example: The domain for the Pontificia Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra is "pucmm.edu.do", where edu is used since it is an educative institution.

Domain Names
This specifiies the name under which the organization will go by on the Internet; this name can be an abbreviation of the organization.

However, another institution may be trying to register that domain name at the same time. To evade conflict, one may supply three alternative names in the registration form.

For example, the domain name "UPS" could belong to The Polytechnical University of Santiago, but the company Universal Power Suply might want to register itself with the same name.

In order to avoid this conflict the company Universal Power Suply must define three alternatives, for example: "UNPS", "UPOWERS", or "POWERSUPLY".

Applicants should read the conditions for requesting domain name registration to be approved before selecting a domain name.

Administrative Contact
This person represents the organization, responds to any non-technical questions and knows the organization's plans.

Technical Contact
This person takes care of the technical aspects of DNS maintenance--maintaining the name servers and interacting with technical personnel of other domains to solve such problems.

NIC - Handle
The NIC Handle is a code, assigned by PUCMM, to those that are granted a domain name. This field should be filled if one knows one code, otherwise it may be left blank.

General Policies
Intro
General Arrangements
Domain Names
Cost of Registration
Deleting Existing Domains
Info
Introduction
The administration of the Top Level Domain for the Domain " DO " (Dominican Republic) was granted to the Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) by the authorities of Internic (SOA) at the CUNet meeting in 1991. The domain name registration system has been developing since then; and in June of 1997 a body of rules were created, stipulating the registering of domains, methods of payment, installation of entries in the domain name database tables, and prevention of domain name registration abuse.

Since June 1 of 1997, the registering and maintenance of domain names were charged for to maintain a continued uptime, establish adecuate informational services and prevent domain name registration abuse.

These quotas will be apllied to all regardless of business or social affiliation. Moreover, all will be able to register domain names that directly depend on "COM.DO", "EDU.DO", "ORG.DO", "ART.DO", "GOV.DO", "SLD.DO", "WEB.DO", "NET.DO", and "MIL.DO." Other domains could be registered with the authorization of the administrative people in charge.

Policies that must be followed in order to register domain names of domain DO are given below. You must already be familiar with INTERNIC policies for domain name registration (RFC 1591).

1.- Definitions
a) Applicant - the representative of an organization (ISP or company of any type) who makes the request for a domain name.

b) New names - domain names which have not been registered in the domain DO data base or which have already been entered but are expired, eliminated from the data base and are available for applicants.

c) Already existing names - domain names which have been registered in the domain DO database and have not expired.

d) Internet Service Provider (denominated as ISP) - a commercial organization who may provide services to applicants. These services can be a connection to the Internet and/or the providing of domain name services.

e) Domain name owner - the technical and administrative contacts that is in the SOA registry of the DNS for the domain.

f) Contacts - people responsible for an individual domain--may be administrative, technical and/or payment in nature.

2.- General dispositions
2.1. The applicant must have a designated server that will resolve the name that the applicant is applying for before asking for the registration of the same.

2.2. The registration request (form) must be filled out and sent to the Technical Contact of Nic DO, in Santo Domingo, República Dominicana.

2.3. The domains structure under DO is as follows:

.edu.do Optional domain for educational or investigational institutions
.com.do Commercial organizations
.org.do Nonlucrative associations
.net.do Network service suppliers
.gov.do Governmental associations
.web.do Web institutions
.art.do Art institutions
.sld.do Health institutions

In order to register domains under GOV.do, it is required that along with the request for registering the domain (form) there be a letter annexed, having a letterhead from the office of governement who desires registration of the domain name and signed by the one in charge (or the legal representative of the one in charge) of office.

3.- Domain names
3.1. The overall length of a domain name cannot exceed 63 characters.

3.2. Valid characters for a domain name are numbers, letters and the script (-). A domain name must not begin or finish with the script (-).

3.3. It is necessary that a domain name being registered be of a certain type (ie. falls under one of the categories from table above).

3.4. Without authority, a domain name cannot not allude to any offical names. For example: gobweb.com.do, webgob.do, etc. cannot be registered without the required authority since they explicitly reference the Dominican government's domain name space. Domain names that are offensive, not legal or against moral convention will not be registered.

3.5. Registering a domain name does not mean registering a mark. It is required that the applicant make sure that a violation of trademark laws is not being made. The authority that registers the domain names (PUCMM) does not assume any responsibilty by doing so, and in the case of a dispute between the ownership of a name, PUCMM will only provide information to both parties involved in the dispute. However, PUCMM reserves the right to revoke the delegation of the domain of an organization or individual in the case that the organization who registered the name of the mark solicits registration of the same.

3.6. The applicant is responsible for the use for the domain name and the sub-domains that the applicant delegates.

3.7. The Technical Contact of domain DO will contact the pertinent authority for the evaluation of a requested registration of a domain name which is considered to be offensive or against the IANA's established regulations (RFC 1591). If the request for registration of the domain name is turned down, the applicant may appeal by sending a complete request for registration at Apelación@ns.nic.do

3.8. It must be understood that the time taken for responding to appeals is variable and that there is no gaurantee that the the request that such domain names will be approved.

3.9. It is recommended that the applicant registering a domain name already has the right to use that name (ie. it is already registered by the applicant). By registering a generic name the applicant must consider that it may not be possible to later register it as trademark; thus there may be some risk doing this.

4. Domain name quota payments
Domain DO will apply two types of quotas. (1) The registry of new names and (2) the maintenance of already existing names. These quotas cover the costs of modifying information belonging to domain name(s) as much times as necessary, providing that these modifications are in the quota's service period.

Domain DO will announce any change in the quotas of domain names.

The funds obtained from providing these services will be used to cover NIC DO's administration and operation expenses.

NIC DO will not process a payment without information about which domain name the payment is being made for. Likewise, those payements that are insufficient to cover the quotas will not be processed. A payment of this nature will be considered as not received and will be returned to the domain name owner.

4.1. Types of quotas

4.1.1. The new name registration quota is US $70.00 dollars or RD $1,750.00 pesos. The domain name will be valid for two years after the date of this initial payment.

4.1.2. The registration and maintenance quotas are not reimbursable.

4.1.3. The maintenance quota applies to all already existing domain names and is US $35.00 dollars or RD $875.00 pesos. This is an annual quota that will be payed after the second year of registering the domain name. Unless Nic DO receives this quota 30 days before the payment deadline, Nic DO will send a reminder by any means necessary--email, fax or news paper announcement. This means that the contacts should update their contact data with Nic DO when necessary.

4.1.4. Registration and maintenance payments should be made within 30 days of receiving payment notification from Nic DO. If Nic DO does not receive payment within this span of time, the domain name will be eliminated from the data base.

4.1.5. Maintenance quotas may be made in advance: two or more payments may be paid at the same time.

4.1.6. Maintenance quotas are not reimbursable.

4.2 Forms of payment:

Cheques: write in name of la Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (Av. Abraham Lincoln, esquina Rómulo Betancourt, Apartado 2748. Santo Domingo, República Dominicana. Tel. 535-0111.
Fax 534-7060). If the cheque is written out with US dollars, it should be from a U.S.A. bank.
Cash
Credit card
Bank Transfer (Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Po. Box 364745, San Juan Puerto Rico, 00936-4745. Cuenta Bancaria No. 095-1050004414). To pay by bank transfer the following requirements must be followed: (1) aditional payment of $USD 10.00 for bank comission, (2) sending us the corresponding bank statement indicating for which domain name the payment was made.
If these are not followed the domain will remain in a pending payment status.
5. Deleting existing names
5.1. Reasons why domain names may be deleted from the domain DO data bases

5.1.1. Not paying registration or maintenance payments before payment deadline

5.1.2. Not maintaining a name server for domain name resolution of the domain name that was solicited (in such cases, an email will be sent to the technical contact 15 days before the elimination of the same; if a reply is not received within the 15 days, the domain name will be eliminated)

5.1.4. In the case of a legal dispute (if some authority determines that a domain name should be eliminated from the domain DO database, PUCMM will accept this resolution and act consequently in accordance to it; a notice will be sent to the technical contact 15 days before elimination)

5.1.5. Request by the applicant, administrative, or technical contact (will be eliminated on the same date that the request was made)