On Mon, 11 Nov 1996 19:24:49 +1000 ceo§MelbourneIT.com.au (Peter
Gerrand) wrote:

>> o Is Melbourne IT prepared to withhold charging until further
>>   discussion of these papers has occurred.
>
>Of course not. We have five full-time staff working on the bureau
>service, and considerable equipment, office and networking expenses,
>and
>we don't propose to go broke.  However we have committed ourselves to
>processing, at no fee, the more than 2,400 back-logged applications
>inherited from the previous voluntary part-time regime; and I am
>pleased
>to report that we have cleared more than 1,200 of these already.

"at no fee"...?

it is my understanding that all of these "freely processed" domain
names
will require re-registration, WITH fee, by 1 feb 97. the same applies
all of the com.au domains registered prior to melbIT's bureau even
being 
the twinkle in some accountant's eye.

i still feel a  bit ignorant of the real costs of "maintaining" domain
names that haven't changed for many months (if not years). in my 
ignorance, the mandatory re-registration seems to be a big case of 
"money for nothing", and a considerable headache for those ISPs 
acting as contacts for a large number of domains.

perhaps someone could educate me?

p

--
Peter Lees  (peter§next.com.au)  -  Technical Manager,  Next Online
tel: +61 2 310 1433  *  fax: +61 2 310 1315  *  http://www.next.com.au

"You can have a day off when you're dead, Baldrick, and not before..."