Network Solutions Inc (NSI) has again extended the testing deadline of the Shared Registration System for domain names from July 16 to August 6, company officials said.
The extension, which is expected to be the final one, was at the request of the US Department of Commerce, NSI officials said last week. Herndon, Virginia-based NSI said the delay will allow the five test bed registrars -- American Online Inc, the Internet Council of Registrars, France Telecom/Oleane, Melbourne IT of Australia and Register.com -- to record .com, .net and .org domain names.
The five registrars were named on April 21, participating in the testing stage from April 26 to July 16. However, most of the registrars were hit with software and hardware delays and weren't up and running as soon as expected. Testing was later extended to July 16.
NSI handled all registration for domain names .net, .org, .com and .edu under government contract before the Clinton administration decided to end NSI's monopoly