Instra will be a featured presenter at the upcoming APTLD (Asia Pacific Top Level Domain) meeting to be held in Beijing, China from 20 – 21 August, 2009. Instra will be discussing the latest advancement in ENUM technology and its experiences in developing a commercial application of ENUM technology. The presentation will encompass the practical application and use of ENUM technology, primarily Global Telephone numbering and advanced call redirection services.

About APTLD
APTLD works as the forum of information exchange regarding technological and operational issues of domain name registries in Asia Pacific region. Also, as an interface to other international Internet coordinating bodies, APTLD fosters and elevates participation of Asia Pacific ccTLDs in these global forum, as well as acting in the best interest of APTLD members in global Internet policy making process.
APTLD is based on membership, and its activities are funded by membership fees.

Objectives
•    To promote skills development and information exchange related to Internet domain names amongst members.
•    To provide a forum to discuss policy matters affecting Internet domain name related entities
•    To act as an interface with Internet coordination bodies and other bodies involved in the Internet domain name operation

Instra is planning to launch .MOBI’s Instant Mobilizer Service by end of August 09.

Instant Mobilizer is a new product designed to open the Mobile Web Opportunity to small businesses. It is a convenient and cost-efficient service to adapt an existing Web site into a mobile-friendly version, and delivers the mobile Web in seconds. Now that more than 60% of consumers have Web-enabled phones, Instant Mobilizer is perfect for your businesses!

Instant Mobilizer will be offered by Instra in conjunction with .MOBI domain registration. To be able to enjoy this fantastic service, you need to first register a .MOBI domain, and then you can indicate any of your existing websites to be made available on mobile devices. The conversion happens in real time. Moreover, the mobile site will show any changes on the source website automatically without any further development.

As a return to our customers’ consistent support, Instra will offer this service at free of charge for three months from Sep to Nov 09. A tool will also be provided or our customers to test the convention before making a purchase.  We will announce the details about the promotion and application procedures in due course.

Instra Corpopration, an active .EU registrar, will start taking Early Bird Registration for .EU IDNs (Internationalised Domain Names) in Sep 09.

IDNs are domain names that may contain non-ASCII characters. These characters include letters with accents and characters in non-Latin languages such as German, Italian, etc.

EURID, the registry operator for .EU, has been working on the IDN project for years. This project will support all characters of all the 23 official EU languages, including Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Irish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish. A public survey run by EURID showed a high popularity of EU IDNs among businesses and individuals.

EURID is planning to launch IDNs in this year. The exact timeline will be announced in a timely manner. Instra will start taking Early Bird Registrations for .EU IDNs in Sep, providing our customers an earlier access and higher chance to seize the upcoming EU IDNs in their preferred languages.

The application procedures will be published in early Sep.

In the past few months, Instra has been working on offering more flexibility with currency charges.  We are glad to annouce that in a few weeks time all payments at Instra  will be processed through the RBS WorldPay payment gateway.  Now you will be able to pay in Euro, USD, NZD, SGD and AUD so you will not be getting charged a currency conversion fee from your bank anymore.

In order to offer WorldPay, Instra needs to meet the highest standards for internet security.  Instra  passed the compliance check set by the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Security Standards Council, which has established a uniform worldwide security standard to minimise the risk to credit card holders when making payment online. As our customer, you can rest assured that your payment details are always safe with Instra

Though the launch of “.CM Go Live” is delayed due to the technical difficulties faced by NETCOM.CM SARL (.CM Registry Operator), Instra is already accepting .CM pre-registrations from the public. The received applications will be submitted to the registry as soon as the Go Live Period opens.

Due to the high similarity to .COM, .CM has gained huge interests in the previous Sunrise and Landrush Periods. Go Live is the first phase that .CM opens to ALL at an affordable price. Instead of an auctioning model, .CM registration will be allocated on a First Come First Serve basis in Go Live.

Instra has long been a trusted supplier of the French name space .FR. Now we have made it even easier for you to register.FR domains via our automatic direct interaction with AFNIC (the governing body of .FR).

With over 36 million active internet users, France has long been an important market for companies that are looking to protect their brand name and grow their online presence.  To help registrar and registrant more effeicently register, manage and renew their .fr domain names, AFNIC launched a new operational interface earlier this year.

Instra has finalised the integration to this direct connection. From now on you will be able to register your .FR domains with us in an instant manner.

3rd August 2009

Instra Corporation’s Chief Operating Officer, Andrew Barton, has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer, succeeding Owner and Founder Tony Lentino in this role.  Tony, will assume the role of Chairman / Chief Strategy Officer effective immediately.

Tony commented “Instra is entering into an exciting period of growth with enormous potential. I have been actively pursuing my love of aviation, and the appointment of Andrew as CEO, will ensure an ongoing focus and consistency in delivering on our online strategy.”

“I am very excited about taking this expanded role at Instra,” said Barton. “Instra has recently developed a unique commercial application of ENUM technology in PhNUM and I look forward to continuing Tony’s hard work in taking this unique telephony solution to the world.”

“I’m very proud of what Instra has accomplished so far,” said Tony. “The team has worked very hard over the past two years to deliver a very Customer centric product set in global domains and telephone numbers.  The company is in a great shape to take the next big step and with the right focus; we will continue our strong growth in what is a dynamic industry.”

About Instra Corporation

Instra Corporation is an international, ICANN-accredited registrar providing an extensive range of over 300 country code Top Level Domain name extensions across the world. Instra is a global provider of Domain Names and the first company in the world to offer a practical application for ENUM technology.
For more information about Instra Corporation and its PhNUM® technology, please visit http://www.instra.com