March 8th 2023

Verisign announces another .com price increase

Verisign has announced a 7% increase in .com prices to take effect on September 1, 2023. This follows a similar increase announced in 2022. The wholesale price for .com domains will increase from $8.97 currently to $9.59 after the increase and doesn't include ICANN's 18 cent fee. Registrars mark the price up to cover payment processing, technical and support costs, and profit. Under its agreement with ICANN and the U.S. government, Verisign is allowed to increase prices by 7% per year in the last four years of every six-year contract term. This will be the third hike of this contract term, and the company is expected to increase .com prices to $10.26 in 2024. With the increase in the number of new domain registrations measured in millions every year, what's the justification for this increase? Do you collect domain names and what effect will this have on your decision to do so?

Join the discussion

Data center leasing hit record rates last year

North American data center leasing reached record levels and vacancy fell to a record low in 2022 according to the CBRE North American Data Center Trends Report. The report indicated tight market conditions and escalating energy and construction costs caused primary-market average asking rents to increase 14.5% year-on-year to US$137.90 per kW. This has been the first year-on-year increase in pricing since 2017. The report notes that demand from enterprise users and cloud service providers remains very strong, particularly as companies continue to adopt hybrid work strategies and prioritize private cloud networks. In our Industry News section there are frequent reports of new datacenter builds, not just in North America but across the whole world. The pandemic is likely to be partly responsible, with companies unable to rely on staff availability to maintain in-house equipment, causing something of an exodus to datacenters able to manage equipment and infrastructure for them. Will this boom continue or should we expect demand to level off? Has your use of datacenter facilities changed over the past year or so or, as a DC operator, do you notice a particular rise in demand?

Join the discussion

News from around the hosting industry

Our Industry News section is the place to find current headlines from around the world of hosting and infrastructure, but other general interest threads pop up in other sections of the forum, especially The Lounge. Here we we highlight just some of the interesting news items from around the forum:

• Proposed Texas law would have ISPs blocking abortion-related websites, affecting how ISPs provide access to websites in Texas - A state law proposed by a Republican lawmaker in Texas would force Internet service providers to block websites containing information on how to obtain an abortion or abortion pill. The bill lists six websites that would have to be blocked, and ISPs would also have to block any website or online platform "operated by or on behalf of an abortion provider or abortion fund" and any website or platform used to download software "that is designed to assist or facilitate efforts to obtain an elective abortion or an abortion-inducing drug." The bill also seems to encourage ISPs to cut off broadband service from people who aim to spread information about abortion.
• HostDime looking to buy land for Peru and Argentina datacenters this year - The company is seeking to expand to Peru, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia and recently announced that GDL-IX, Guadalajara's first peering exchange, will make its home at HostDime Mexico's current datacenter in the city. It is also setting up CFL-IX (Orlando's first peering exchange) in its upcoming Orlando tier IV datacenter, to be completed by June.
• Colt expands three new European services with Equinix - They have expanded their on-demand infrastructure to interconnect with Equinix Fabric in Spain, Italy and Sweden. This is an addition to the company's existing relationships in the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands, along with Singapore and Hong Kong. Last month Equinix disclosed Colt as its first customer planned in a second site in Barcelona which will connect to major subsea cables from key metros throughout the Mediterranean, coastal Africa and the Middle East.
• Megawide building Philippines data center with Evolution Data Centres - A construction company controlled by tycoon Edgar Saavedra is building its first data center south of Manila, Philippines. The $300M, 69 MW facility is being developed by Megawide in partnership with Singapore-based Evolution Data Centres. It is planned to be under construction for five years and is subject to Philippine regulatory approval.

Got some news of your own to share? If it's news from your own company it belongs in Web Hosting Industry Announcements (no ads please!). If you've scooped some news about something else going on in the hosting industry we'd love for you to share it in our Industry News section!

Browse our Industry News section

Advertise with Web Hosting Talk

WebHostingTalk is an online community of members who regularly turn to WHT for information and peer engagement on hosting business and technology topics. WebHostingTalk supports a knowledgeable memberbase and attracts a web-savvy audience with user generated content and purpose. If you're looking to tap-in to advertising opportunities on WHT, reach out to sales@PROTECTED to start a discussion.

Follow WebHostingTalk on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn