ccTLD Spotlight: .AE United Arab Emirates
Thursday, June 5th, 2008
A look at the .AE country code domain name.
Overview: United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a federation of seven states in the middle east, including Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. This oil-rich territory uses the country code domain name .AE.
Population and Demographics: UAE has only five million residents, but that number is growing quickly as the area quickly booms with its oil and development wealth. If you’ve seen pictures of that man-made island in the shape of a palm tree, that’s the UAE. The official language is Arabic, but many of the emirates have large English speaking populations along with expatriate populations.
Domain registration:Anyone can register a .AE domain name, but it’s not as simple as going to GoDaddy and
registering it. None of the major registrars appear to offer it, perhaps because of the manual process used by UAEnic to register domains.
You can easily search for available domain names at nic.ae, but registering is a different matter. You must complete a paper form and fax it in along with a copy of your photo ID and payment authorization. Renewal also requires sending in paper forms, but the registry offers 50 year registrations. A one year registration costs 150 AED, approximately $41 USD. The Nic.ae site promises an online registration process coming soon, but that message has been on its web site for over a year.
Registering online is an option if you’re willing to pay an intermediary or psuedo-registrar. AsiaRegistry.com, for example, will register .ae domain names for $199 a year.
Poker.ae is available, but don’t bother registering it. You cannot register domains related to gambling, sex, and religion with a .ae extension.
Aftermarket: DNSalePrice.com doesn’t show any aftermarket sales. Searching a few forums, it appears that a couple people have sold two letter and generic .ae domain names for $1,000-$10,000. A number of quality domain names are still available, and the area is a booming, so there may be upside potential. Arabic character domains may also present an opportunity.
Further Reading:
I received an update from a friend who writes:
“the official population for the UAE is 35 million and 15 million are construction workers, there is $450 billion worth of investment and 30% of the worlds construction cranes are located in the UAE. There are so many in Dubai there are traffic lights suspended in the air to allow them to work next to each other.”
[...] Go here to see the original: ccTLD Spotlight: .AE United Arab Emirates – Domain Name Wire [...]
Sounds like a better bet than the dying .mobi
All, good article but this is all about to change. AusRegistry International (www.ausregistry.com) has been working with the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) of the UAE to establish the .ae Domain Administration (aeDA) – http://www.aeda.ae. They have recently been delegated the name away from UAEnic and the new regime will be launching in August 2008. Expect to see far better registration mechanisms, an “open” .ae domain name space and cheaper pricing! Check the website for more information.
@ Adrian, thanks for the information. It looks like this will be a good shot in the arm for .ae to get it moving.
[...] But the discussion will be around what violates norms in various countries and not others: gambling and pornography are high on that list. After all, you can’t register second level domains related to these two in some middle eastern domains, such as .AE. [...]