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Cameroon goes on charm offensive to boost adoption of .cm domain

By , Freelance Investigative Journalist
Cameroon , 15 Jul 2020

Cameroon wants more individuals, companies and institutions to make use of its .cm country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD).

The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Minette Libom Li Likeng has instituted a three-month promotional period, slashing the annual subscription rate linked to .cm by more than half.

Between 1 July and 1 October, 2020, the .cm domain will be sold at 1,000 Francs CFA (including tax) to authorised registrars by the National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC).

Authorised registrars have been ordered not to sell the .cm domain name above 2,000 Francs CFA during this promotional period.

Prior to the promotion, the .cm domain name cost 7,000 Francs per year and this price had been revised from 35,000 Francs CFA in 2015. Once the promotional period elapses, the .cm domain name will return to its usual price of 7,000 Francs CFA per year, officials said.

The Minister said the intention behind the campaign is to enable local institutions and individuals acquire domain names that reflect their origin at a give-away price.

Government officials claim the .cm domain has advantages over foreign domain names because local websites with .cm domain gain visibility as they enjoy greater SEO over websites with other domain names.

They also say the .cm domain enhances identification as holders can be located, thereby improving internet governance and providing more security to internet users. In addition, .cm support teams are said to offer assistance to customers, before, during and after registration.

Camtel and MTN Cameroon are some of the registrars approved by ANTIC to sell the .cm domain name. Others include Creolink Communications, Worldvoice Cameroon, NETCOM, Ringo, HTT Telecom, CAMOO Sarl, GLOBEX Cameroun, ICCSOFT, INFOGENIE Technologies and MATRIX Telecom.

Recent data on the exact number of .cm websites is not available. However, the latest available data shows there are about 53,500 websites which have been registered with the .cm domain.

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