RE: [cobalt-users] Was Names4Ever, now OpenSRS

["John Burgess" <john.burgess@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Jeff,

The mirror thing would seem to be requirement, but they might not be
enforcing it. I have seen some posts in this list (or maybe one of the
OpenSRS lists) from individuals who have been set-up as virtually hosted
resellers.  Tucows says they require you to be a Tucows affiliate.
Requirements for affiliates are at
http://affiliate.tucows.com/application.html.

The mirror sites allow you to place some small graphics and links to where
ever you want.  Since I personally find banner advertising distracting to
say the least (what I really think of it I shall not say in a public forum),
I find this to be an acceptable trade off.  The public gets a very good
repository of free software and other 'stuff' (I do all 7 mirrors), I
provide what I feel is a community resource, and I get some small amount of
exposure from the mirrors in a setting I find acceptable.  And at some point
when I have my infrastructure as automated as I want it to be, I might
actually have time make effective use of the exposure.  I'm not saving on
any upstream bandwidth, 875 of my Dialup pops are upstream.  I pay for my
bandwidth too, but not by the byte.  I'm not co-located, I built my own NOC.
(Crazy?  Maybe.  But I'm not accustomed to be told what I can and can't do
with a network.  I'm using T1's that can sustain maximum theoretical port
speed indefinitely; the DS3's are in but not turned up yet, so I'm not in
danger of getting billed for excess port usage), and I monitor and
dynamically regulate the T1 usage.  It operates on bandwidth that would go
unused anyway (who wants to waste bandwidth *smile*).  I set the mirror
traffic to runs at a much lower priority than email, customer web sites,
etc, so the bandwidth use varies inversely to the amount of revenue
generating traffic.

Payment is made either by a deposit account or you can go thorough the
process of getting credit setup with them so you can be invoiced.  I presume
most resellers use deposit accounts because setting up credit can take time.
You make your deposits with credit cards, checks, bank transfers, etc and
you then have a pool of 'domain years' against which your registrations are
applied.  I think the minimum initial account deposit is 50 domain years
($500).  You keep track of all your account information, change your DNS
servers, contact information, check your account balance, set up customer
letters, etc on-line via the web.

I've found OpenSRS to be an cost-effective alternative to putting up the
required bond and paying the required software fees to be an ICANN
accredited registrar.  I just wanted to let you know also, I am completely
independent, and other than hosting the Tucows mirrors and being an
independent reseller using OpenSRS, I am in no way connected with them, so
it is really in my best interest to recommend some other registrars reseller
program to you.  I don't need the competition *smile*.

John

P.S.
I saw the Interactive Week Special Report
(http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2473709-3,00.html) that
you were quoted in.  I wanted to ask you, in what context were your remarks
made?  The DSL battle or something else?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:cobalt-users-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Jeff Lasman
> Sent: Saturday, April 01, 2000 12:50 PM
> To: cobalt-users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: Re: [cobalt-users] Was Names4Ever, now OpenSRS
>
>
> John Burgess wrote:
>
> > I have been an Opensrs reseller since it's availability
> last December.
> > Although there are still some rough spots, overall it is a very good
> > organization.  To qualify as an OpenSrs reseller, you need
> to set-up a
> > Tucows mirror so you will need some bandwidth and some disk
> space for that
> > (my Tucows mirrors take well over a million hits a month).
>
> At one time I remember them saying they didn't require that.  Am i
> mistaken, or did they change their minds?
>
> It makes absolutely no sense at all to establish yourself as a Tucows
> mirror unless you're also a dialup ISP with an awful lot of
> clients; the
> only reason to do it would be to save on upstream bandwidth.
>
> How much traffic does you million plus hits use?  This is a nobrainer
> for me; if they require it, there's no way I'm interested,
> that traffic
> is going to call me no small amount; I pay for my traffic.
>
> > They provide you
> > with perl CGI's and templates that you use to integrate the
> domain ordering
> > and mangement tools and functions into your web site.
> Set-up and testing
> > can be a little intimidating for the non-technical, you
> will pretty much
> > need to figure that out without a lot of help from them.
> However it is well
> > worth the effort.  The registration and domain management
> interfaces are
> > pretty decent "out of the box" so you don't have to
> customize if you don't
> > want.  What I like is that you _can_ customize as much as
> you want.  I
> > understand that integration into an NT/IIS environment can
> be difficult, so
> > Linux on Intel is recommended, but it is open source, so
> some resellers have
> > developed NT and C++ ports and they are quite willing to share them.
>
> Otherwise it all sounds quite good.  What do they have in place for
> paying for domains registration?  Do they bill you, or do you have to
> have credit card information on file with them, or do you send it with
> each order?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jeff
> --
> Jeff Lasman <jblists@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> nobaloney.net
> P. O. Box 52672
> Riverside, CA  92517
> voice: (909) 787-8589  *  fax: (909) 782-0205
>
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