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Palestine to release all one-character .ps domains, at a price

Kevin Murphy, December 23, 2019, Domain Registries

In a couple of weeks, you’ll be able to register single-character domains under the Palestinian ccTLD, .ps.
Local registry PNINA, the Palestinian Nation Internet Naming Authority, says that on January 6 at 0800 UTC it will add these names to its premium list, making them available via approved registrars.
Wholesale prices for the first year appear to be $2,000 across the board, with a $500-a-year renewal fee. Registrants can expect to pay more at the registrar check-out.
There are no local presence eligibility requirements under PNINA policy.
While investing in ccTLDs always carries some risk and uncertainty, one imagines that .ps may be riskier than most over the long term. It’s been on the ISO 3166 list of two-letter country codes for 20 years and has been in the root since 2000, but Palestine is not a full member of the United Nations.

One and two-letter .at domains coming soon

Nic.at will next month start selling .at domains shorter than three character domains for the first time.
All one-character and two-character domains will be released, the ccTLD registry said, about 5,000 domains in total.
The released domains include those containing any of the 34 non-Latin letters Nic.at supports, it said.
Holders of trademarks valid in Austria before July 1 get the first crack at the names, during a August 29 to September 23 sunrise period.
During this phase, domains will cost €240 ($265) with a €120 ($132) application fee. Contested sunrise names will be auctioned in October.
Everything not grabbed by trademark interests will be put to a public auction from November 7, where the minimum bid will be €72 ($79).
If there’s anything left after that, it will be released into the general available pool for registration at standard .at prices.
Nic.at plans to dump all registered one and two-character domains into the .at zone file, so they can be used, at the same time on December 6.
Austria has no local presence requirements for ccTLD registration.
Given “at” has some semantic value in English, it could be a popular launch.