More PKNIC screwups

Once again, one of Pakistan’s biggest ISP has fallen victim to the anathema that is PKNIC. It was just over a month ago that they somehow changed entries for Dancom’s domains in their database and this was done without any request from our side and without even informing us. Our domain and hence our email, websites and a number of other services were cut off from the rest of the world due to this.

They have now done it again. Though the latest entries are still valid and they haven’t had a major impact, they are not what they should be. We have attempted to reach them on their staff email address, the only point of contact, without any reply so far.

So to summarize, the sole authority for the .PK top level domain charges exorbitant fees (more than $30 a year) for domain registrations and still makes blunders that cause unacceptable outages for an industry that thrives on high availability. To top it off, they have no street address or support number. These incidences make it seem like we live in a banana republic with no hope for those that depend on things being done correctly.

With most of the world’s TLDs becoming available for registration through more than one registrar, I think it is about time that we got rid of PKNIC or forced them to change their ways. They have had a good profitable run for many years now and enough is enough. I don’t know if the last issue reached the right people at the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA), but this time, I’ll make sure that it does and something solid is done about it.

8 thoughts on “More PKNIC screwups

  1. I am told that PKNIC is run by one person who runs this as a side business and has made handsomely from the rights – It was handed to him in the late 80’s while he was a graduate student in the US and has since run the affair as a side business in Pakistan ever since he has an iron clad grip and is making tons and has still not setup a decent outfit even yet. Some investigation needs to be done in this regard

  2. Yet another example of monopoly. We should immediately get rid of that single person ill managed authority.

  3. In response to Atif:

    Get rid of Ashar and who manages PKNIC then? Easier said than done my friend!

  4. Good God, I am not the only one utterly frustrated with their single point of contact, an e-mail address they never respond to.

    Recently I purchased several PKNIC pre-paid cards to register .pk domains, and found that their system does not yet accept payments for .pk domains using their much touted pre-paid cards. The card only seems valid on the name.com.pk domains. With no reply to my constant e-mails, I am on the verge of losing serious money by having to pay for them using other options or losing business while waiting for them upgrade their system.

    Hellish experience I would say, I am seriously thinking about contacting the ministry of IT to put them out of business.

  5. Yea PKNIC seems to suck , haven’t had much experience but i was going to purchase prepaid cards to register a .com.pk domain , do they work or they don’t even accept prepaid cards for .com.pk?

  6. What you do is you complain to Verisign, the authority which has the registry. Tell them the problems you are going through with some solid evidence. They will take care of it.I own a couple of pk domains but haven’t have any problems, maybe cause I used my credit card.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *