The General Availability (GA) phase for .SO, the top-level domain (TLD) of the Republic Somalia, will start on April 1, 2011. During GA, anyone interested may register .SO domains following the “first come, first served” principle. Key-Systems is accepting pre-registrations shortly before the start of General Availability. In addition to .SO, three other domain extensions are available: .COM.SO, which aims especially at commercial entities, .NET.SO for networks and .ORG.SO for non-profit organizations.

St. Ingbert, 11-03-28. The introduction process for the Somali domain extensions .SO, .COM.SO, .NET.SO and .ORG.SO will be completed with the start of General Availability on April 1. From then on, domain names can be registered following the "first-come, first served" principle. “Many memorable .SO domain names are still available”, says Key-Systems’ CEO Alexander Siffrin. “At the start of General Availability, you have the highest chance to register the desired domain name first.”

The policy for the TLD .SO is liberal, there are no restrictions concerning the registrants, no local presence service is needed. The registration period for domains registered during General Availability has to be at least one year and maximum ten years. .SO domain names must be made up of a minimum of 3 characters and a maximum of 63 characters (excluding the extension). Only the Latin alphabet letters a-z, digits, and hyphens will be accepted.

Domain names beginning or ending with hyphens, as well as domain names with hyphens on the third and fourth position are prohibited. Technical operator of .SO is the Japanese company GMO Registry, for the operative tasks the Somali SO registry is responsible. The “sponsoring organization” of the TLD is the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications of Somalia.

Key-Systems is an international, ICANN accredited registrar, which currently administers more than 3 million domains for more than 70,000 retail and corporate customers and 1,700 resellers worldwide. The company with 54 employees is the second largest ICANN registrar in Europe and one of the 15 largest in the world (Source: webhosting.info). Key-Systems' headquarters are located in St. Ingbert/Germany. Furthermore, the company runs two subsidiaries in the USA and Mexico and owns a majority interest in the Polish registrar AZ.pl.

Via the end customer portal domaindiscount24.com and the reseller portal RRPproxy.net, customers are currently able to register domain names with more than 280 different top-level- and second-level extensions fully automated. Furthermore, Key-Systems is able to realize any TLD worldwide on customer's request. The corporate domain portal BrandShelter.com offers companies the worldwide registration of domains with all available extensions and a comprehensive online brand protection.

About Key-Systems
Key-Systems GmbH located in St. Ingbert, Germany, was founded by Alexander Siffrin in 1998. The company has grown from an academic sideline to a successful international ICANN accredited registrar for internet addresses. Areas such as a fully automated reseller-system and web hosting completed the success story. Today with more than 3 million domains under its management, the company has reached a leading market position, selling domain names, web hosting and DNS services to customers all over the world. The latest product BrandShelter.com offers companies and institutions special services related to domain administration including services to get their own top-level domain (TLD) as this opportunity unfolds in the near future. Key-Systems is operating subsidiaries in the USA and Mexico.

Key-Systems GmbH
Dorothea Marx
Public Relations
Im Oberen Werk 1
66386 St. Ingbert
Germany
Phone: +49 6894 93 96 902
Fax: +49 6894 93 96 851
Email: dmarx@key-systems.net

Key-Systems USA, Inc.
Bonnie Wittenburg
Executive Vice President, US
604 S. King Street
Leesburg, Virginia 20175
USA
Phone: +1 703 574 3831
Fax: +1 201 596 1433
Email: bwittenburg@key-systems.net
Web: www.key-systems.net
twitter.com/Key_Systems
www.key-systems.net/facebook

This release was published on openPR.