Company lays off 18% of staff in preparation for “very difficult economic environment in 2009″.

Domain Name Wire has confirmed that Los Angeles-based domain juggernaut Oversee.net is laying off employees today. From what we’ve been told it’s in the DomainSponsor division, but the layoffs may be more widespread. We are waiting on comment from the company regarding the number of effected employees. [See Update] The layoffs come just two weeks before the company’s DOMAINfest conference in Los Angeles.

Mason Cole, Oversee.net VP of Communications, released the following statement to Domain Name Wire:

Oversee is reorganizing its businesses because it expects a very difficult economic environment in 2009. As part of the reorganization, we have had an 18% reduction in force, including some managers.

Oversee will focus over the next year in the areas where it has a leadership position. Going forward, areas of focus include: Domain name monetization, Domain name aftermarket, Registrar, and Travel.

Accordingly, we’ve discontinued activity or investment in areas that aren’t as promising (mortgage, for example). The reduction is a result of the refocusing on key areas.

In August Oversee.net laid off 10% of its employees across its divisions including DomainSponsor, Snapnames, and Moniker.

Since then the domain parking business has continued to deteriorate. Current revenue from domain parking cannot justify previous staffing levels at many domain parking companies. Other divisions of the company are also likely hurting, including NameKing. The previous layoffs occurred under the former company president Lawrence Ng. This is the first round of layoffs under new president Jeff Kupietzky.

Oversee.net is not the only domain name company cutting employees. NameMedia trimmed its workforce near the end of last year, and domain registrar Tucows cut 15% of its staff in November.

Broadband wireless access is essential for placing those last minute bids on NameJet.

[Editor's note: this is the first in a new series on Domain Name Wire that features non-domain gear -- both hardware and software -- that's helpful to domainers. We've added a "Domainer Gear" category so you can see all of the articles in this series as they're published.]

I’m currently in a taxi in Chicago on my way to 2008 GeoDomain Expo. One of the biggest pains of traveling is connectivity, including finding safe (and hopefully free) wifi connections. But I don’t have to deal with that anymore now that I use mobile broadband service from Sprint. I can connect to the internet at fast speeds almost wherever I am — even in this taxi cab.

If you haven’t tried mobile broadband yet, now may be the time. I think in a few years people won’t give a damn about wifi hotspots; we’ll all connect via our mobile network.

My laptop came pre-installed with a Sprint modem. It works just like wifi, except you don’t have to find a hotspot (it goes through the cellular network) and it’s much more secure than hooking up to “coffee-shop-wifi” network. I generally get 1 MB downstream connections and 300-500k upstream.

At $60 a month, mobile broadband isn’t cheap but the cost is easy to justify. For example, I figure I paid for my monthly access in just a week when I was at the TRAFFIC show in Orlando a couple months ago. Access in the conference center was free, but in-room internet cost $10 a day. I really wanted to go back to my room to work on stories, so I would have ended up paying $10 each day to connect (and felt guilty about it). If you travel more than a few days a month, the money you save on hotel broadband easily justifies the cost of this service.

But it’s the convenience and productivity improvements that really sells mobile broadband. When I show up 15 minutes early to a meeting in town I just open up my laptop and connect. That’s 15 minutes I would have spent pecking at my Treo’s keyboard. Or worse, doing nothing. When my flight home from the Orlando TRAFFIC show was delayed, I just opened up my laptop and started working.

When it comes to domaining, an always-on connection is even more important. Just ask Lonnie.