RegistrarsAsia Subsidiary Chosen by auDA to operate registry for .au Second Level Domain Names

Melbourne, Australia – 12 December 2001 - RegistrarsAsia Pty. Ltd. today announced that its subsidiary, AusRegistry Pty. Ltd. has been selected by the .au Domain Administration (auDA) to be the registry operator for com.au, net.au, asn.au, id.au and org.au.

"We are very pleased to accept this challenge," said Simon Delzoppo, CEO of AusRegistry. "Today marks a significant move forward for the domain name industry in Australia. AusRegistry is committed to meeting the stringent technical requirements as outlined in auDA’s Request for Tender document."

AusRegistry has signed a four-year agreement with auDA to provide registry services and will immediately begin developing its systems and infrastructure to launch a parallel test-bed registry as soon as possible.

RegistrarsAsia will cease to operate as a registrar and reseller in the .au namespace once the transition to competition takes place, in order to allow the transparent operation of AusRegistry.

"auDA is confident that AusRegistry will perform its registry operations with high levels of service, expertise and integrity," said Chris Disspain, CEO of auDA. "They have an excellent vision for the .au 2LDs and have brought together strong strategic partners to ensure a world-class registry system."

Strategic Partners
AusRegistry will draw on the experience of Afilias, the operator of the new .INFO global top-level domain (gTLD), to help build the enhanced registry infrastructure and execute an integrated marketing communications campaign.

Pricing
The 2LDs allotted to AusRegistry will have a competitive pricing structure in order to stimulate growth and encourage registration. Registry prices of these 2LDs, which reflect the wholesale cost to registrars, will be as follows:

Domain names within these 2LDs will be retailed to consumers by registrars in accordance with their service plans and offerings.

About AusRegistry
AusRegistry is a subsidiary of RegistrarsAsia and established for the sole purpose of being the registry operator for .au 2LDs. RegistrarsAsia is an essential Internet service supplier specialising in the registration of Internet Domain Names. RegistrarsAsia is accredited by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and qualified in the registration of all top level names currently available (.com, .net and .org through Verisign, .biz through Neulevel and .info through Afilias). Country code domains are also made available through accreditation with each of the country code registries with a focus on the Asia Pacific region (.au, .nz, .hk, .cn). For more information about RegistrarsAsia, please visit www.regasia.com