DE-NIC services

As a result of how to finance NIC services, the services to be provided were reduced to what a NIC has to do. Most of the voluntary work and services that can be provided by service providers were cut out.

The DE-NIC should provide services mainly to the service providers

Domain name registration

This was the main point in DE-NIC services, as the registration of domains was monopolistic in nature. The DE name space is made up by having the end user organisation as second level domain. No further structure was used, so this service has to be provided by the DE-NIC.

Maintaining a consistent DE TLD

This is a direct consequence of the first task.

Internet address registry of last resort

It was felt, that this service should be provided by the DE-NIC in addition to local Internet registries already set up by the Internet service providers. This should serve those end users who weren't decisive as to which service provider they wanted to be connected to or didn't want to be connected at all.

Service provider coordination

In the past, when a customer decided to change his service provider, sometimes the result was temporarily loss of connectivity for the customer, as the hand over of the customer from service provider to service provider was done in an uncoordinated way. The DE-NIC served as a coordinating body, making changes in the DE TLD and changing entries in routing registries in a manner, connectivity of the customer was maintained during the transient period.