Slashdot Mirror
Niue WiFi Network Gone, .nu TLD May Follow
gxc writes "The world's first free national wireless grid is no longer with us, after waves from
Cyclone Heta swept over Niue's thirty metre cliffs, destroying
everything. Although only one person died, the damage is so bad that
there is talk of winding up the country , meaning their fortuitous ccTLD could go the way of .su. Perhaps the easiest way
for Slashdotters to help Niue would be to choose a .nu domain over the dull alternatives."
I would highly doubt that the tld will go away, just as I doubt Niue will give up it's independence.
Hey, maybe I should move there and telecommute.
Available from the CIA Factbook entry for Niue.
Niue - Cia world factbook info
This link is for people like me who had never heard of this place before and is full of intresting facts such as.
"The sale of postage stamps to foreign collectors is an important source of revenue."
WTF is Niue??
/ ne.html
CIA World Factbook to the rescue!
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos
Niue came to be self-governed simply because of its remoteness from New Zealand (which still maintains Niue's defense). Without generous grants from New Zealand to make up regular budget deficits, Niue would have folded long ago. The population is half what it was in the Sixties, and continues to decline. I personally hope Niue is able to make a go of it, but things were hardly rosy before the storm.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
it seems like the idea of them being a nation is more *cool* than it is practical
Not really, they just wanted to rule themselves, like most other peoples on this earth.
They were first claimed by the British, then were turned over to New Zealand, and in 1974 they gained their independence to manage themselves. At the same time they remained in free association with New Zealand, and to this day we provide a lot of financial support and manage their international affairs. There are around 1,500 Niuians on Niue, and around 20,000 in New Zealand. They're just picking that more will come to NZ. Which is a shame because Niue is a lovely place. Great snorkelling and diving, but most of the coastal beds will have been damaged by Heta and take 5-10 years to recover (Cyclone Ofa was the last major one in 1990). They didn't have wireless when I was there in Nov 2002. Main reason for Island wide wireless was that cabling kinda sucked. Mobile phones were starting to take off too - like most developing countries it is easier to roll out wireless.
Here's a another write-up of the incident by ReliefWeb. If you're looking for a place to direct your help to, note that Niue is a member of Development and Economic Policy Division Funding Assistance and Regional Natural Disaster Relief Fund ... so these might be good places to donate.
I suppose you could also just pick a random person, transfer some money and ask them to pass it around, since there are only about 2,000 people there.
From the looks of it, after this event, the entire set of data will have to be overhauled, including:
.nu, we should have a .dc too. It's not a state after all...
Area - comparative:
1.5 times the size of Washington, DC
Now...
Area - comparative:
1.2 times the size of Washington, DC (erosion effect).
Seriously, if we can have a
Ah the irony of Niue, "Savage Island". It was so named by Capt Cook after the fierce-appearing warriors painted their teeth red by chewing a local plant. Later they were "Christianized" by missionaries and now apparently rival the Puritans in their pious and strict religion.
At any rate, Niueans don't shy away from selling the .nu domain (means nude in French), and host many adult web sites under it. Also, they appantly offer a tax shelter for many less than savory businesses.
My source for this information was the excellent book, _Blue Latitudes_ by Tony Horwitz.
IAAFC*, and I know that "nu" isn't slang at all in French, it's the most commonly used word translating "naked" whatever the context, be it pr0n or medecine seminars. Of course, on the Net right now, I think pr0n is bound to dominate .nu, but some ppl like naturalist painters might enjoy a ".naked" :)
.fm ) did sold many domain names to foreigners, for obvious reasons.
For the record, "neu" in German means "again" too. In fact, I suppose there are a lot of languages for which this sound means something as is, so Niue could have good business if they choose to remain independant and have Net facilities. Malaysia (
*I am a French Canadian
United States of America, good ol' backers of world peace.
Most /.-tters hate the idea of donating money, but it pays to understand the relative motivations first. In any case, neither Nuie nor the Kiwis seem to be minding the current arrangement, so who are we to question its viability?
More than mere navel gazing.
Well "nu" is a word in Swedish, meaning "now", so it's easy to see why companies like it, "cars.now" would be a nice domain for any cardealership.
.nu has been a source of rivarly between the Niue people and an American who effectively stole it from the country through deception. The population have been trying to get it back with no luck. The Americans have been threatening the local people (whole story documented here)
.nu domain, your money will just line the pockets of a shady entrepreneur.
No-one from Niue will benefit if you register a
For those of you thinking of registering a .nu domain to assist Niue, don't. First, because there are better ways to fund your donation dollars, as has been pointed out by other posters.
.nu ccTLD. While both sides have their versions of the story, a telling fact is that the UN recognized government is locked out of their own web site (www.gov.nu). They can be found instead at www.niuegov.com. You will note that the updates on the gov.nu site stopped in October and continue on at the niuegov.com site, which is hosted by a UN agency (UNDP-APDIP to be exact).
.nu ccTLD registrar will reach the government. The registrar may assist in other ways, but it will not likely be through official channels.
The second reason is that there is a dispute going on between the government of Niue and the companies that control the
Because of this, I truly doubt that any money spent with the
One version of the dispute between the government and the registrar can be found here.
Also see this article or do a google search on "niue government .nu" and you will see many references to a dispute between the ccTLD registrar and the government of Niue. The government is accusing the registrar of not sharing the proceeds from the .nu domain.
You are probably better off finding a better charity to donate to.
Another thing to consider is: A year or two ago the .nu registrar raped the Danish WHOIS server at DK Hostmaster and sent out spam to hundreds, if not thousands, of owners of .dk domains -- including yours truly. For that reason I recommend boycotting .NU Domain Ltd and its affiliates entirely.
Unselfish actions pay back better
Even if New Zealand assumes soverign control, Niue will probably retain its ccTLD.
Worth noting is that Tom Hanks little Island in Castaway was supposed to be "600 miles south of the Cook Islands". Niue is one of the Cook Islands.
Actually, the status of .su is debatable -- IANA froze the domain so that no new .su domains could be created, but it was reopened by .su administrators a few years later, even though IANA & ICANN didn't recognize it as an active TLD. .su still isn't listed on IANA's public list of ccTLDs, but it's listed the in whois.iana.org database because .su's administrators are too stubborn to give up. (The .su root servers are also .ru root servers, which makes them hard to ignore.)
.cs in 1995 and .zr in 2001. (Also, I'm told .dd was dissolved when the two Germanies unified, but I'm not sure .dd was ever active to begin with.)
.nu, depending on how active it remained and who was willing to keep managing it.
Using the ccTLD of a "deleted nation" is kind of iffy. The ccTLDs are supposed to be based on ISO 3166-1, and the ISO is allowed to reassign old codes to new nations. If IANA let ccTLDs outlive their nations, they increase the chances of having two claims to one ccTLD. Sooner or later, somebody would get accused of ccTLD-squatting.
For the record, ccTLDs have been sucessfully dissolved before:
If the end of Niue's independence led the ISO to drop nu from ISO 3166-1, IANA and ICANN probably would try to freeze or delete
Keep in mind, though, ISO 3166-1 doesn't require political independence for a region to have a geographic code, because it's still useful for "distant regions" to have their own codes for non-Internet purposes (like air travel and shipping). There are completely uninhabited islands that still have ISO codes! As long as people are living on Niue (and New Zealand doesn't ask for deletion), the ISO will probably leave nu on the list.
Proud to be / Smiley-free / Since Nineteen / Ninety-Three
Sorry!
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
First the Governemnt of Niue is not winning any of its court cases against the .nu. They are presided by NZ judges.
.Nu pays several thousands of dollars a month for an 128kb/s (I think) link to the Internet
.nu until they saw it was making real money.
.nu will give free access to the Internet for the people of Niue?
.nu
d ex.php?p age=Niue
Secondly, Internet is absolutely free in Niue, except that people are obliged to pay a metered local phone call to the government telecom company, therefore the Wifi network to make it absolutely free.
Thirdly,
Fourthly, the gov did not care about
Considering the other stories in the Pacific, will a government run
The best way to help Niue is by directly providing relief support to the Internet User Society of Niue.
Telecommunication is back to Niue. The Internet may be the last one to recover, because of this fight between gov and
Read the other side of the story:
http://www.internetforce.org/tiki/tiki-in