Second in our collection of reviewed registrars for ISPs is a turnkey domain name registration service that is wholly operable with Rodopi billing software.

by Jeff Goldman [February 2, 2001]

California-based registrar Names4Ever was accredited by ICANN in May 1999. Domain name registration is just one of the many services that parent company Abacus America/A+Net provides.

Abacus offers system integration, colocation and hosting services, as well as billing software, dialup and DSL access. A+Net is the Internet division of Abacus America whose customers include Kodak, Amilyn, and Space Electronics.

Registrars chronicle
Mark Drake, Names4Ever sales manager, said its domain name registration service is a logical extension the company's full-service strategy.

"Abacus America started out as a hardware and systems integration company, back in 1989, but we added Internet services and associated functions quickly." Drake said. "When the actual testbed for domain name registration was over, Abacus America was listed as one of the first five for becoming a registrar. So we've been in the business as a registrar since the beginning."

The majority of the ISPs who partner with A+Net for domain name services are initially drawn into the deal by its association with the popular Rodopi billing software. For ISP partners, domain name registration is just an additional bonus to using the back office application.

Drake said A+Net has more than 600 ISPs currently partnered with Rodopi.

"Our ISP partners are, for the most part, reselling A+Net services, including domain registration and hosting," Drake said. "We also have a new DSL wholesale program that incorporates into our service mix as well. ISP partners have the opportunity to resell a variety of the A+Net services if they become a Rodopi member."

Drake guarantees that Names4Ever will not compete with its ISP partners for hosting or registrar services. "We do not market to or contact any member's end users," Drake said. "That would make no sense."

To PIRIN or not to PIRIN
ISPs who want to use Names4Ever's registrar services can join as an affiliate or a partner; either arrangement takes about a week to process.

According to Drake, it makes far more sense for most ISPs to join Names4Ever as a partner, than as an affiliate.

"Most ISPs want to do the partnership," Drake said. "It makes sense economically because we offer ISP partners the ability to private label their service, which allows them to take advantage of better pricing on our bulk purchase program."

ISP affiliates receive customizable HTML code to connect their users with Names4Ever's servers. They can use the code to build a co-branded web site, and they never have to think about the registration process again.

For its part, Names4Ever deals with all the domain name registration, billing, and other services. It pays the affiliate a referral commission for each registered domain—checks are mailed monthly. To keep up on usage, affiliates can access online reporting of their referrals at any time.

Affiliates who register less than 100 domains per month receive $8.40 for the first two years' registration of each domain name and $4.20 for each additional year. Registering 100-500 domains brings an ISPs commission up to $17.50 for the first two years' registration and $8.75 for each additional year.

Finally, those who register over 500 domain names a month receive $25.20 per domain and $12.60 for each additional year. In every case, the referred user pays the Names4Ever retail price of $70 for two years.

ISP partners, on the other hand, purchase domain names at wholesale rates from Names4Ever and take on the responsibility of managing and billing those domains themselves.

The registration software can be fully co-branded so that users see only the ISP's name, and the ISP has complete freedom to set pricing at any level. There is no setup fee, and no minimum number of domains to register each month. Domains purchased through the partnership program cost just $7.99 per domain per year.

Simple? Kind of—but there are two different types of partnerships to choose from. The simplest and fastest turnkey registration solution requires that the ISP purchase A+Net's Rodopi billing software. There are a number of different ways to do this.

Alternatively, ISPs who aren't too excited about having to purchase third-party software can use PIRIN, Names4Ever's open source software, in order to to access its naming system.

PIRIN interfaces directly with the Names4Ever domain name registration system via XML and can be extensively customized to meet nearly any ISPs needs. But unlike Rodopi, implementing PIRIN is far from a turnkey solution. It requires significant programming ability, and is neither simple nor speedy to implement.

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