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Deletion of domains by Zamnet continues

14 June 2013 14:32:22 +0000

Not satisfied with having deleted 37 per cent of domains earlier this week, it appears that Zamnet continue to delete even more domains! Today we find out that domains that were still working on Tuesday have now been deleted, causing more clients to scramble because their email and websites have suddenly stopped working. This brings the percentage of domains deleted without warning due to Zamnet’s incompetence to 42 per cent … almost half! When will this stop?!

We encourage clients affected by these arbitrary and unannounced interruptions to their business to file a complaint with the Zambia Information and Communication Technology Authority. (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: The complaint form disappeared shortly after we posted this. Try their “Complaint Handling” page instead.)

Massive, unannounced deletion of dot-zm domains by Zamnet

11 June 2013 11:15:39 +0000

Over the last few days it has become apparent to us that Zamnet’s accounting department — just as Coppernet’s did almost three years ago — awoke from a long hibernation and realised that a chunk of active domains hadn’t been paid for. As a result, 37 per cent of the dot-zm domains hosted by NinerNet that are (or were) registered with Zamnet — which includes .co.zm, .org.zm and .sch.zm domains — were deleted by Zamnet, taking them off the Internet completely. One client tells us that Zamnet informed them, when they enquired, that they were supposedly four years behind! (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: Another client tells us they had not been invoiced for their dot-co.zm domain in thirteen years! They’ve since switched to a dot-com with “zambia” tacked onto their name, as so many people do to avoid the hassle and expense of registering a dot-zm domain.)

It seems unlikely to us that so many Zamnet customers had simply ignored their invoices for several years. It’s more likely that they were never invoiced. In fact, our own domain (ninernet.co.zm) came up for renewal over a month ago, and we still have not received an invoice. Perhaps Zamnet are too busy disabling over a third of the country’s Internet infrastructure to send out invoices! (CORRECTION, 2013-06-28: Oops, seems we hadn’t updated our records correctly. Zamnet [when they do invoice] bills for domains every two years. Ours does not expire until next year. Our apologies for the incorrect statement, although it doesn’t really change much!)

Screenshot of Zamnet home page, 11 June 2013.

Screenshot of Zamnet home page, 11 June 2013

Other countries take the management of their ccTLD (country code top-level domain) far more seriously than this. They have published rules and procedures governing what exactly happens after a domain expires. They also operate a WHOIS service so that the public can look up “who is” the owner of a domain and the dates that it was registered and will expire. Zamnet and Coppernet, as co-stewards of the dot-zm ccTLD — an odd arrangement that we are not aware of in any other country — do not provide any such information, at least to the public. In fact, judging by these arbitrary and cavalier mass deletions carried out by both companies, they don’t even have any such policies! They just seem to make this up as they go along.

Screenshot of ZICTA home page, 11 June 2013.

Screenshot of ZICTA home page, 11 June 2013

You would think that — given that deleting 37 per cent of the country’s domains has all of the appearance of a planned and concerted effort — Zamnet would, at the very least, post a prominent notice on the home page of their website. However, there is no such notice as of posting this. (Click on the thumbnail at left to see.) I’m also not aware of any notices posted in newspapers. So much for their laughable slogan: “Nobody delivers IT better.” Right now, more than a third of their customers are not gettingĀ anything delivered, and it’s clear that their slogan doesn’t apply to the delivery of invoices.

 

And where is ZICTA in all of this? You’d think they’d be interested in the disabling of 37 per cent of the country’s domains, but there’s nothing posted on the home page of their website either! Maybe a few complaints via their complaint form might get their attention. (UPDATE, 2013-06-28: Hmm, the complaint form disappeared shortly after we posted this. Try their “Complaint Handling” page instead.)

Please note that, if you did not register your dot-zm domain through NinerNet, we do not know when it is scheduled to expire and we cannot help you in dealing with Zamnet. We don’t know how effective it would be to request an update to the contact information for your domain so that we can monitor it, from an administrative (not technical) point of view, but if you’d like to try we’re certainly game to assist and cooperate. Let us know if you’d like to try.

Issues such as these mass and arbitrary deletions, as well as the entire dot-zm ccTLD going down occasionally, are the two main reason we discourage clients from registering dot-zm domains. This is unfortunate, of course, but clients expect their online services to actually be … online! It is also the reason that we created the alternative ccTLD for Zambia: dot-zam.co. They’re only K66 per year (as opposed to hundreds for a dot-co.zm and hundreds more for a dot-com.zm) and don’t require paperwork.

Price increase for dot-co.za domains

4 June 2013 11:52:29 +0000

The dot-co.za registry has announced a price increase of 50% for registration and renewal of dot-co.za domains, effective 1 March 2013. As a result, we too must increase our prices, and this will be effective immediately.

The new prices are live on our rates pages. Please check there for the new rates in your currency.

We appreciate your understanding.

Zambian kwacha rebasing

15 December 2012 15:42:05 +0000

As you will be aware, if you’re a Zambian client, the kwacha will be rebased on 1 January 2013, making 1000 old kwachas equal to 1 new kwacha. In keeping with Bank of Zambia guidelines and requirements, this will affect our invoicing as follows:

  • Invoices we issue between 15 and 31 December 2012, inclusive, will be issued in old kwachas, but will also include a value in new (rebased) kwachas. If you pay the invoice on or before 31 December, you will need to pay the old kwacha amount. If you pay the invoice on or after 1 January, you will need to pay the new kwacha amount.
  • Invoices we issue between 1 January and 30 June will be in new kwachas, but will include the value in old kwachas for comparison.
  • Where we have used the “K” symbol we will use the “KR” symbol (“kwacha rebased”) between 1 January and 30 June, inclusive. After that we will once again revert to using just the “K”.
  • Where we have used the currency code ZMK, we will use ZMW on and after 1 January.
  • Any account balances carried over into 2013 will be converted to new kwachas (ZMW) by dividing by 1000, and rounding as per BOZ guidelines. Similarly, previous account balances, although billed and paid for in old kwachas, will be converted to new kwachas for the purpose of calculating your running account balance in new kwachas.
  • Invoices will be rounded off to the nearest 5 ngwee to facilitate cash payments by those clients who prefer to pay in cash. CORRECTION, 2013-01-30: Invoices will not be rounded. If you are paying in cash in person, your balance owing will be rounded to the nearest 5 ngwee at the time of payment. If you deposit cash to our bank account, please round to the nearest 5 ngwee. Whether the rounding is up or down, we will record the actual payment and carry forward a balance of the difference (1 or 2 ngwee) between your payment and the actual invoice amount. If the rounding is down, this will not adversely affect the state of your account with us.
  • The cover emails to which invoices are attached (and all reminders, expiry notices, etc.) will reflect amounts only in old kwachas in 2012, and only in new kwachas in 2013. These emails are only an unofficial summary of the official invoice, which is the PDF document attached to the invoice email.
  • We will, in due course, publish new rates on our website. There will be no increase in our rates at this time — i.e., all rates in new kwachas will be the same as the old rates, divided by 1000.

If you have any questions about this, please let us know. Thank-you.

Senegal IP addresses blocked

1 August 2012 06:59:29 +0000

Over the years we have resisted the temptation to block whole countries based on the bad behaviour of only a few of their residents. Many mail servers out there block email from all of China, roughly 20% of the world’s population! We do not.

However, due to a constant onslaught from determined spammers in Senegal, we have blocked all IP addresses assigned to that country. We hope to remove the block after some time, but we cannot predict when that might come to pass.

These are the IP address ranges that we have blocked:

31.201.2.0 - 31.201.2.3
37.59.137.240 - 37.59.137.255
37.222.209.0 - 37.222.209.255
41.62.0.0 - 41.62.255.255
41.82.0.0 - 41.83.255.255
41.208.128.0 - 41.208.191.255
41.214.0.0 - 41.214.127.255
41.219.0.0 - 41.219.63.255
46.36.197.111 - 46.36.197.120
64.182.63.133 - 64.182.63.141
69.13.133.138 - 69.13.133.146
69.13.190.244 - 69.13.190.252
80.84.25.48 - 80.84.25.63
82.206.180.0 - 82.206.180.255
82.206.198.128 - 82.206.198.255
92.39.112.0 - 92.39.112.127
178.32.167.96 - 178.32.167.111
193.220.57.104 - 193.220.57.111
193.220.72.224 - 193.220.72.231
193.220.72.248 - 193.220.72.255
194.117.53.0 - 194.117.53.127
196.1.92.0 - 196.1.100.255
196.207.192.0 - 196.207.255.255
208.68.251.0 - 208.68.251.255
213.154.64.0 - 213.154.95.255
216.139.166.0 - 216.139.166.255

If this adversely affects you in any way, please contact NinerNet support with details. Thank-you

New Bank of Zambia currency regulations

15 June 2012 09:57:44 +0000

On 12 June we learnt of The Bank of Zambia (Currency) Regulations, 2012, that were apparently passed on 7 May, came into effect on 18 May, and were posted on the BOZ website on 7 June. Despite the fact that our US dollar-based invoices have always included, according to previous law, a kwacha value (the other option on a foreign currency-based invoice is [or was] to include a conversion rate), it appears now that the mere mention of a foreign currency is illegal, and punishable by significant fines and/or jail terms.

Although NinerNet has clients in quite a number of countries around the world, in Zambia we operate through a locally-registered, turnover tax company named (believe it or not) “NinerNet Communications“. (Doing so significantly improves our ability to operate competitively in Zambia, and we have always been quick to point out to prospective Zambian clients that our invoices can be settled locally in kwachas.) As a result, our business in Zambia must be considered domestic, and so we are subject to this new law.

Unfortunately this news arrived too late for us to reconfigure and re-program our invoicing system in time for June’s invoicing. Therefore we will be adding prominent notices to our June invoice emails and the invoices themselves which indicate that, despite the presence of dollar amounts on the invoice, we “demand to be paid” in kwachas in accordance with section 4 of the new Regulations. To be clear, to comply with this law we can no longer accept payment in US dollars (or any other foreign currency) on “domestic transactions” in Zambia. In fact, we will be closing our dollar account in July.

By 1 July we will be issuing invoices denominated in kwachas only. We’ll also be adding a rates page for kwachas to our website, rather than simply referring clients to the US dollar rates. We’ll send a follow-up email to advise you of the new, fixed rates when they’re published. We have not finalised these yet, but we anticipate basing the new rates on an even exchange rate that hedges slightly against future variations. This will result in a price increase of about 87Ā¢ … oops, I mean K4500 per month for those clients on our most popular hosting plan, with the benefit being that your invoice won’t fluctuate from month to month.

I welcome your feedback on this issue. The commenting system on this blog is not working (yet!), so please contact me through the contact form on the NinerNet website to let me have your thoughts. Thanks.

Craig

Domain block removed

11 June 2012 10:53:57 +0000

The following four domains that were blocked a couple of weeks ago have been unblocked after liaising with the company involved:

  • cfcsprl.com
  • congofret.com
  • impala-wl.com
  • trafigura.com

Thanks for your patience while we worked to resolve this issue.

Domains blocked

21 May 2012 14:55:21 +0000

We have taken the unusual step of blocking mail to and from certain domains on our primary mail server that are not (to our knowledge) sources of spam. These domains are:

  • cfcsprl.com
  • congofret.com
  • impala-wl.com
  • trafigura.com

We have blocked email to these domains because their mail servers — all hosted by the same company — while appearing to be up, do not accept any email. Instead of immediately rejecting email with either permanent (5xx) or temporary (4xx) errors, they hold open the connection from our mail server until it times out. This has a significant negative impact on other email sent by our clients.

Adding to the issue is that the domains associated with the mail servers and nameservers of their hosting provider — smtpdaemon.net and dnsdaemon.net — do not resolve to websites, and the identity of the owner of these domains is hidden behind a WHOIS privacy service. This means that this hosting company does not want to reveal who they are or how to contact them.

We regret the necessity to make this decision, and will revisit it in the future should circumstances change or if new or changed information is brought to light.

As always, please contact NinerNet support should you have any questions or concerns.

Christmas and New Year Break: Hours and Wishes

24 December 2011 20:47:02 +0000

I’d like to take a moment of your time to wish you and your family and staff all the best for this holiday season and the coming New Year, and to thank you for being a NinerNet client and for the support you have shown us over the past year by referring new business to us. We appreciate this and the trust you show in us very much. Thanks to you, NinerNet has continued to grow despite the state of the economy in some parts of the world, although we’re looking forward to more robust growth in 2012.

Please note that support will be staffed as usual over the Christmas and New Year period, but non-essential functions will be on a break between 23 December and 2 January, returning on 3 January. For support issues, please ensure that you email support or send an email through our website. Thank-you.

Again, all the best to you and yours, and thanks for your ongoing support.

Craig

Server NC018 move: The aftermath

25 July 2011 07:39:44 +0000

The move of server NC018 to the new data centre has been completed. Due to two failures, the downtime for some websites was longer than the planned 12 hours. These two failures were as follows:

  1. For some reason the data centre did not actually configure the server to use the new IP address, even though this was expressly a part of — and indeed a requirement of — the move. This resulted in most websites being down when the server came back online because most websites on the server use the server’s primary IP address. (Websites that have their own or share a secondary IP address had no problems, initially.) We have made a submission to the data centre to have this issue reviewed. However, given that such physical moves are so rare, it’s unlikely we’ll be in a position to test whether or not lessons have been learnt. For ourselves, we’ve learnt that a large part of the problem could have been avoided if we actually hosted most domains on a secondary IP address, rather than the primary. We’ll consider following through on this, but given other plans that will come to pass long before the chance of another physical move comes about, we may not do this at this time.
  2. Secondly, a script that we were assured by the provider of the control panel would work to assign domains quickly to the new IP address as soon as the server came back online, had no effect. The lesson here is that nothing can take the place of exhaustive testing.

I mentioned above that websites on their own IP address experienced no problems “initially”. Once trouble tickets were opened with the data centre, we and their technicians were working at cross purposes at one point, and they essentially redid work we had done to bring websites on the primary IP address online, and at the same time taking down those websites (including the NinerNet website) on their own IP addresses. When this was discovered it was quickly fixed.

We had some reports from clients that email was arriving out of order. This is to be expected when a server has been offline for a while. This is what happens: Let’s say an email is sent 5 minutes after the server goes offline. It can’t be delivered, so the sending mail server holds onto it and tries again in 5 minutes. It still can’t be delivered, so it tries again in 10 minutes, then half an hour, then every hour, and so on. So if the server comes back online part way through the hour wait, but a different email is sent a minute after the server comes back online, that newer email will be delivered immediately, as usual, but the older email won’t be delivered until the hour wait has expired.

Clients hosting some or all of their services on a server other than NC018 and using the third nameserver we provided were up for the duration of the server move.

There was a minor issue with some outbound email that was on the server before the move. We’re still investigating that. However, there were no issues with inbound email that we’re aware of.

Unrelated to the move itself was the fact that posts to our Identi.ca and Twitter accounts did not appear. Of course, these services are independent of NinerNet — which is part of the point, actually — so this was beyond our control. Our status website remained online at status.ninernet.net. It will revert to status.niner.net, but will still be available at the former address, now and in the future.

Again, we appreciate your patience and understanding during this necessary move. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Craig

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This is the corporate blog of NinerNet Communications. It's where we post announcements, inform and educate our clients, and discuss issues related to the Internet (web and email) hosting business and all it entails. This includes concomitant industries and activities such as domain registration, SSL/TLS certificates, online back-up, virtual private servers (VPS), cloud hosting, etc. Please visit our main website for more information about us.

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