Network Solutions and SRS Plus

Network Solutions

At one point in time (Pre 1999) Network Solutions had a monopoli on Domain name registrations, In 1999 the ICANN opened the door for other registrars to compete in the marketplace, and ended the Network Solutions monopoli

Network solutions has been accused of "Domain Name front running" in the past, and other controversial practices that made many move away from them, But the number one factor why this registrar dropped in the rankings of number of domain name registrations is the fact that there prices never went down, a $35 for a .com is 4.5 times the cost of a domain name on other cheaper registrars.

Additional services such as E-Mail and hosting are also expensive, while an e-mail mailbox is free with some registrars.

SRSPlus

SRS Plus enables resellers to sell the Network Solutions Domain names via either an API or a web interface where the reseller does the registration via a web interface, Please note that this is not a turnkey sollution, SRS Plus offers an API only as well as a portal for the reseller to manage his domains and services.

The advantages SRS Plus has are as follows

1- No overhead Fees, only a deposit of $250 is requiered and that deposit counts towards domain names or other services.
2- The pricing for a .COM is $8.45/year to the reseller, the .NET sells at the same price, and so does the .ORG
3-The API is ready made and Open Source, Perl and a C compiler along with COM, and then the reseller is expected to set it up and build a system around the ready made API software.

I have no experience with SRS Plus, but they do seem like a candidate if the $1.45 advantage does not matter much. and an API is what is needed.