] >The biggest pressure I can see for this year is that at least one
] >monopoly commercial DNA will likely be requesting/demanding in a
] >few months time, that registrants pay significant amounts of money
] >just to continue holding their domains.
] 
] Whilst there may be some perceived advantage to registering in the com.au
] domain, the .com is easier to deal with, cheaper, and quicker.  

I'm not talking about new registrations in this thread, I'm talking
about existing domain names (those more than 1.5 years old now).

Changing domain names is a very considerable pain which means there
is strong pressure to keep the same domain name you had before.
 
If I had been talking about new registrations, then the fact that its
hard to find an unallocated name that you want in com would have been
relevant.

For anyone who asks "what's wrong with .com?", I invite you to find
a table of the percentage of 2/3/4/5-letter .com domains available
and compare that with com.au domains available.  I won't be at all
surprised when you find there are *much* fewer .com domains left.

If DNS is like real estate, then the com gTLD feels "over-crowded".

] Do we really want a system that is either that difficulty to deal with in
] terms of red tape, or expensive that the .com.au domain is just by passed?

I certainly want to see the cost of com.au domains reduced (particularly
renewals).  That's why I wrote the paragraph at the top of this message.
__________________________________________________________________________
 David Keegel <djk&#167;cyber.com.au>  URL: http://www.cyber.com.au/users/djk/
Cybersource P/L: Unix Systems Administration and TCP/IP network management