Etisalat to hand over .ae internet domain to TRA

Emirati incumbent telco Etisalat is to hand over control of the .ae internet domain to the country’s regulator the Telecoms Regulatory Agency (TRA). The TRA will take responsibility for managing web registration in the second quarter of this year. A unit with around a dozen staff has been specially created for the task. The regulator has said it wants to make registering a website a simpler process, and may update the naming system to mirror that of the ‘.co.uk’ and ‘.org.uk’ web suffixes used in the uk. The 40,000 or so websites already registered with the .ae name should see little change in service, although a spokesman for the TRA said that some website owners may be required to re-register.