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The price of Bangladesh's country code top-level domain .bd has been reduced by 36 per cent following a second round of review, Special Assistant to the Chief Adviser Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb announced on Friday.
In a Facebook post, Faiz Ahmad Taiyeb said the decision was taken in response to applications and feedback from stakeholders, with the aim of making the national domain more affordable and widely used.
He also announced that, alongside state-owned Bangladesh Telecommunication Company Limited (BTCL), five private resellers have already been appointed to offer .bd domain registration services.
"Use .bd domains, and interested parties are welcome to apply to become resellers," he wrote, encouraging greater participation from the private sector in expanding the national domain ecosystem.
According to the revised pricing published by BTCL, the registration fee for 2+ letter third-level domains (such as abc.com.bd) has been reduced to Tk 700 per year, while the renewal fee now stands at Tk 1,020. For 2+ letter second-level domains (such as abc.bd), the registration fee has been cut to Tk 1,280, with the renewal fee set at Tk 1,600. The reduced rates are subject to applicable conditions and for a limited period.
The move comes against the backdrop of long-standing concerns over the weak uptake of the .bd domain, despite Bangladesh having more than one million registered domain names overall.
Around 50,000 Bangladeshi websites currently use the national ccTLD, far behind regional and global peers.
Experts and industry insiders have previously attributed the slow growth of .bd to relatively higher costs, service quality issues, and the long-standing monopoly of BTCL over registration and maintenance.
The government has, in recent years, signaled its intention to open up the sector to competition to improve efficiency and customer experience.
The latest price reduction and the appointment of private resellers are seen as steps towards revitalising the national domain space, reducing outflows of foreign currency spent on foreign domains, and strengthening Bangladesh's digital identity online.
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