What am I paying the registry for?

Sometimes our customers ask (and with right) "what is it we are paying ISNIC for"? The short version of the answer is to explain what happens if ISNIC stops servicing the domain. Then neither email nor the webpage will be found, in fact the domain disappears off the internet!

Companies like ISNIC are called Registries. They are only about 200 in the world, and they manage the worldwide Domain Name System (DNS) together.

The central operation of ISNIC is to run the DNS for the Top Level Domain .is, but all domains need a DNS-service to be found on the Internet. The domain and the DNS is a simple but clever and very effective way to find an IP-address which then connects users to an email or a web server on the Internet. Even though you might change your ip-address (i.e. your hosting) the domain will stay unchanged.

Many videos can be found on YouTube that explain the DNS-system. One of the good ones is DNS Basics, prepared by Johnson T. Rafallo, a young network and computer technician student.