The .ae Domain Administration (.aeDA) of the UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) announced a new initiative to donate 50 distinguished Emirati websites, national domains under .ae for a whole year free of charge to encourage them to use the UAE national domain name (.ae) and to highlight their Emirati identity on the Internet.
The agreement was between the TRA and the Emirates Internet Group (EIG) for the .aeDA to cover the fees of registering 50 UAE websites under the national domain name (.ae) for a year, where the EIG chooses the websites that the conditions of the donation apply upon.
To this end, H.E. Mohamed Nasser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, stated: “Committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and in support to young Emirati websites, the TRA has decided to award these websites via granting them the registration of the national domain (.ae) for a year, where the EIG will place the standards of choosing the websites on which the conditions of these standards apply upon.” “The purpose of this donation is to encourage all companies and individuals in the UAE to use the national domain name (.ae), since it represents the UAE identity on the Internet,” added Al Ghanim.
In his turn, Mr. Khalid Bin Thani, EIG President and President of the Arab Union of Internet Societies, said: “It is our pleasure to do this task to serve the UAE national domain name in order to enhance the UAE name on the Internet.” “There are many benefits in using the UAE national domain name (.ae) in comparison to other domain names, especially highlighting the UAE identity on the Internet and the availability of a large number of attractive names under (.ae), which are nearly impossible to acquire under other domain names such as (.com),” added Bin Thani.
“The standards on which the donation will be granted to chosen websites are in two categories: for the existing websites that wish to convert from (.com) to (.ae), and for the young males and females that wish to establish new websites; where the theme and the goals of the website will be taken into consideration upon choosing,” concluded Bin Thani.

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As part of its strategy to support and enhance Arabic content on the Internet, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has announced its plan to launch .emarat .امارات)). This step has been made under the new directions of ICANN — the international corporation responsible for managing the assignment of domain names and IP addresses, which allows the use of languages other than English as an equivalent to the domain names for countries.

“.emarat” is the Arabic equivalent for the currently used domain name “.ae”. The Ministerial Council for Services has previously approved the usage of “.emarat” as a domain name for UAE in Arabic.

In his comments, H.E. Mohamed Naser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, said: “Our objective is to support Arabic content over the internet and build a strong identity for UAE and Arab countries across the World Wide Web. We encourage all companies and entities in the UAE to register for ‘.ae’ and Name .امارات)) ‘.emarat’ as it represents their local business identity and brings their country pride.”

Using an Arabic domain name would expand the number of Internet users and enhance the Arabic identity of UAE and increase the contribution to the Arabic content available on the Internet. The .ae Domain Administration of TRA has updated its systems to support domain name registration in Arabic.

Mohammed Gheyath, Executive Director, Technology Development Affairs, said: “Our Systems have been upgraded to handle the registration of .emarat, the Arabic domain name of UAE Our goal is to become the first Arab country to introduce an Arabic domain name.”

Gheyath added, “Introducing a new TLD will lead to acquiring several unique web addresses that attracts website owners and Internet users. Moreover, using the Arabic language in internet addresses is a new and unique experience. The launch of registration for the Arabic domain .emarat .امارات)) is expected in the Q2 2010.”

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The ae domain administration (aeDA) a body under the UAE’s telecoms regulator authority (TRA) has launched a totally new and rebranded website which follows the themes of the current campaign that is help by the aeDA to increase the new domain name registrations under .ae and also to raise public awareness about the internet in the UAE and the cctld .ae and to further develop it into the society as the national internet pride. Way to go aeDA team!

P.S its really awesome to see the “if its in the UAE its gotta be .ae” banners all over Dubai, the earlier day I was driving in Dubai Media City and noticed the banners on all street poles and tunnels/flyovers. This is really interesting as the aeDA is promoting not only the .ae domain but also the accredited registrars that gain free audience from these banners. Once again things are being done in the UAE (Dubai) style, that is the ‘best” style.

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Mr Mohammad Gheyath, Executive Director, Technology Development Affairs at TRA, and Mr Mohammad Zarooni, Director of .ae Domain Administration, at the .aeDA Media Roundtable in Dubai yesterday

If it’s in the UAE it’s gotta be .ae

Dubai, October 11, 2009: The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA)Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has begun the second phase of its marketing campaign to enhance the registration of the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) of the United Arab Emirates – .ae.

The main objective of the campaign is to target new businesses that have yet to register a domain name and also existing organizations and businesses that have a web presence but have not registered for a .ae domain name.

“In the period [August 2008 to August 2009], the number of new registrations increased by 30 per cent compared to the corresponding period the year before. There are more registrars [no monopoly] providing .ae domain name registration. Customers have the choice to select their registrar as competition leads to better service. The registration process brought online has also made it easier,” said TRA

The campaign highlights the importance of registering and using .ae domain names by all public and private entities operating in UAE or having a relationship with UAE. If an internet address has .ae at the end of it, its registered in the United Arab Emirates and a part of the .ae domain space regulated by the .aeDA.

In his comments, H.E. Mohamed Naser Al Ghanim, TRA Director General, said: “We encourage all companies and entities in UAE to move to .ae as it truly represents their UAE identity on the Internet.”

Al Ghanim added: “Through the introduction of .aeDA, we streamlined and automated the entire registration process and brought on multiple new accredited Registrars for better pricing, services and access. We also made changes to increase .ae openness and accessibility while retaining the strong moral and cultural identity of the UAE. Our new campaign is aimed at promoting the .ae domain so that it becomes the domain of choice for all users willing to showcase a UAE presence on the World Wide Web.”

The most common usage in the area of domain names is .com, which is an example of a generic Top Level Domain (gTLD). With the commercialization and popularization of the Internet in the 1990s, the .com domain quickly became the most common top-level domain for websites, email and networking.

The use of ccTLDs like .ae is specific to individual countries around the world. Some examples of ccTLDs are .uk for the United Kingdom, .au for Australia and .kw for Kuwait. The trend towards localizing online contents for better serving national identity, communities, customers and end users has paved the way for many websites to move to ccTLDs.

“There are many rational benefits to have a .ae domain name,” said Mohammed Gheyath, Executive Director, Technology Development Affairs. “It allows you to protect your web space, access the name you want for your domain name, and signal to your customers where your business is located. It is worth mentioning that .com is a saturated namespace and has already 80 million registered domain names compared to around 90 thousands registered .ae domain names. This would make the chance of getting good and catchy names under .ae much higher than .com But one of main emotional reasons is national pride. The UAE has an excellent local, regional, and global representation as an economic powerhouse and an ultra-modern nation. Having a .ae address is a big business tool that lets the company develop a unique national identity that positively communicates that the company is based in the UAE. An example of countries where the use of ccTLD dominates the use of .com is Germany. Almost all German websites uses .de as they consider it a national pride.”

Additional details and information about .aeDA Registry System and the accredited .aeDA registrars are available on the website www.aeda.ae. The .aeDA is responsible for the setting and enforcement of all policy with regard to the operation of the .ae ccTLD as well as overseeing the operation of the Registry System.

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Registrations of the .ae domain name have increased by 30 per cent this year, with the most being from Dubai, said the country’s telecom?regulator.

The Telecommunication Regulation Authority (TRA) told Emirates Business it had witnessed growth this year mainly because of the new policy framework and a non-monopolistic environment among registrars.

“In the period [August 2008 to August 2009], the number of new registrations increased by 30 per cent compared to the corresponding period the year before. There are more registrars [no monopoly] providing .ae domain name registration. Customers have the choice to select their registrar as competition leads to better service. The registration process brought online has also made it easier,” said TRA.

In fact, during the second quarter in 2009, country code TLDs (ccTLDs) globally rose by 14 per cent year- over-year to 74.4 million domain names.

.ae is the internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the UAE. It is administered by .aeDA, which is part of TRA.

The .ae domain was originally delegated to internet service provider UUNET. Recognising the domain should be administered in the country, it was transferred in 1995 to etisalat, following a brief period of administration by the UAE University. Since then, etisalat, through UAE Network Information Centre (UAEnic) division, has been responsible for operation of .ae domain.

During 2006, the TRA announced that .ae management and operations would be re-delegated to it from etisalat/UAEnic, the current .ae ccTLD manager.

A new entity called .ae Domain Administration (.ae DA) was formed to take care of management and operations of .ae based on the latest Domain Name System (DNS) and domain registry technologies. During January 2008, IANA(Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) officially re-delegated .ae domain to TRA.

In August 2008, .aeDA took over DNS (domain name system) and launched their services with the new registry system, which supports registry-registrar model. Currently, .aeDA has accredited 15 registrars, including etisalat, from different parts of the world.

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