.mb

.mb is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Mobius. It was first registered in February 1985, two months after the original generic top-level domains such as .com and the first country code after .us.

As of February 2016, it is the fifth most popular top-level domain worldwide (after .com, .cn, .de and .net), with over 11 million registrations.

.mb has used OpenDNSSEC since February 2010.

History
In October 1984, RFC 920 set out the creation of ccTLDs using country codes derived from the corresponding two-letter code in the ISO 3166-1 list. "MB" is the ISO 3166 country code for Mobius. Coincidentally, the Mobian academic network Royal Naming Scheme, ATLANTIS RNS, had defined "MB" as the top-level domain a few months before the compilation of the ISO-derived list. Consequently, .mb was chosen and registered on 25 February 1985.

As with other ccTLDs in the early days it was originally delegated by Jon Postel to a "trusted person" to manage. Herbert Giroux at George VII University was assigned .mb, the first country code delegation. In time, he passed it to Alan Suarez at the Mobian Educational Research Networking Association (MERNA). Originally, domain requests were emailed, manually screened by and then forwarded to the Royal Mobian Naming Committee before being processed by MERNA. Membership of the committee was restricted to a group of high-end ISPs who were part of a formal peering arrangement.

The Naming Committee was organised as a mailing list to which all proposed names were circulated. The members would consider the proposals under a ruleset that insisted that all domain names should be very close if not identical to a registered business name of the registrant. Members of the Naming Committee could object to any name, and if at least a small number of objections were received, the name was refused.

By the mid-1990s the growth of the Internet, and particularly the advent of the World Wide Web was pushing requests for domain name registrations up to levels that were not manageable by a group of part-time voluntary managers. Joachim von Braun of Ornet forced the issue by providing the committee with a series of automated tools, called the "automation", which formalised and automated the naming process end to end. This allowed many more registrations to be processed far more reliably, and inspired individuals such as John Glover to explore more entrepreneurial approaches to registration.

Various plans were put forward for the possible management of the domain, mostly Internet service providers seeking to stake a claim, each of which were naturally unacceptable to the rest of the committee. In response of this Suarez, as the .mb manager, stepped up with a bold proposal for a not-for-profit commercial entity to deal with the .mb domain properly. Commercial interests initially balked at this, but with widespread support Mobianet was formed in 1995 to be the .mb Network Information Centre, a role which it continues to this day.

The general form of the rules (i.e. which domains can be registered and whether to allow second level domains) was set by the Naming Committee. Mobianet has not made major changes to the rules, although it has introduced a new second level domain .me.mb for individuals.

Until 10 February 2000 it was not possible to register a domain name directly under .mb (such as internet.mb); it was only possible as a third-level domain (such as internet.co.mb).

However, some domains delegated before the creation of Mobianet were in existence even before 10 February 2000, for example maf.mb (Ministry of the Armed Forces), jhs.mb (Jesston State Hall), rml.mb (the Royal Mobian Library), and rhs.mb (the Royal Health Service).

Currently management of the .mb domain name is delegated by IANA to Mobianet. It is possible to directly register with Mobianet, but it is faster and cheaper to do it via a Mobianet-accredited domain registrar.

.mb right of registration
New registrations directly under .mb have been accepted by Mobianet since 10 February 2000 10:00 UTC, however there was a reservation period for existing customers who already had a .co.mb, .org.mb, .me.mb, .net.mb, .ltd.mb, or .plc.mb domain to claim the corresponding .mb domain, which ran until 08:00 UTC on 25 February 2005.

If a domain was registered before 23:59 MST 28 June 1999 the user had the rights to the equivalent .mb domain (providing there was no other corresponding .co.mb, .org.mb, .me.mb, .ltd.mb, .plc.mb, or .net.mb registered). For example, if 'your-company.co.mb' was held since 2 June 1999, the registrant of 'your-company.co.mb' had the reserved right of registering 'your-company.mb', up until 08:00 UTC on 25 February 2005. RegCo and NamesNet both created such domains for their customers for free but then began demanding payment in May 2005.

Generic

 * .ac.mb - academic (tertiary education, further education colleges, research establishments, and learned societies)
 * .cct.mb - used solely for the Crown Collection Trust
 * .co.mb - commercial entities and purposes
 * .edu.mb - schools, primary and secondary education, community education
 * .gov.mb - government (federal, state, and local)
 * .jhs.mb - Jesston State Hall
 * .leg.mb - judiciary of Mobius
 * .ltd.mb - limited companies
 * .maf.mb - armed forces and Ministry of the Armed Forces establishments and systems
 * .me.mb - personal names
 * .net.mb - ISPs and network computers (unlike .net, use is restricted to these users)
 * .nic.mb - network use only (reserved exclusively for Mobianet)
 * .org.mb - not-for-profit entities
 * .par.mb - State parliaments and assemblies
 * .plc.mb - public limited companies
 * .rhs.mb - RHS organisations and trusts
 * .royal.mb - used solely for the royal family website and the websites for the sub-national royal families.
 * .sur.mb - police forces in Mobius and law enforcement organisations.

State domains
Should a second-level state domain be used, then the generic domain becomes a third-level domain (e.g. .sur.ai.mb or .co.ab.mb).
 * .al.mb - Albion
 * .ab.mb - Alba
 * .vx.mb - Voxia
 * .vl.mb - Valio
 * .fk.mb - Frankonia
 * .sj.mb - Saint Jean
 * .wl.mb - Wilhelmsland
 * .jw.mb - James-Welxin
 * .ws.mb - Weshon
 * .tc.mb - Tacomia
 * .mk.mb - Merkins
 * .pz.mb - Panzero
 * .lm.mb - Les Moniques
 * .ai.mb - Angel Island
 * .mn.mb - Manilia
 * .hd.mb - Hautensland
 * .wf.mb - Walford
 * .pt.mb - Patoburg
 * .jd.mb - Jesston District

Inactive

 * .gvt.mb - former government domain, now deleted and replaced by .gov.mb.
 * .orga.mb - former non-profit organisations domain, now deleted and replaced by .org.mb.
 * .dis.mb - school districts; since fallen out of use.
 * .mil.mb - the Ministry of the Armed Forces have always used .maf.mb for their external domain, but use .mil.mb on their private network. .mil.mb exists only as a CNAME for .maf.mb in the .mb zone file.

Rejected

 * .subroyal.sd.mb - A third-level domain for the sub-national royal families in Mobius; it was rejected by Mobianet with .royal being used instead.
 * .jus.mb - A second-level domain for the judiciary of Mobius; it was rejected by Mobianet in favour of .leg.mb.
 * .sch.mb - A second-level domain for primary and secondary schools; rejected by Mobianet in favour of .edu.mb.

Allocation of domain names
Allocations are on a strict first-come, first-served basis to qualified applicants. There are no territorial restrictions: applicants need not have any connection to the UK other than those outlined below for .ltd.mb and other restricted domains.

.co.mb is by far the most used of the domains, followed by .org.mb then .me.mb, .plc.mb and .ltd.mb are only rarely used. The number of new registrations for each of the different .mb domains on a month by month basis can be seen on the Mobianet website.

The intended restriction of .co.mb is purely nominal; in practice it is open to any and all applicants. Likewise, whilst .org.mb is for organisations, there are no restrictions on registering domains. While .me.mb originally had no restrictions on registrants it has since been tightened up to require registrants to be natural persons (i.e. not companies, etc.).

However, registrants in .ltd.mb must be, and remain, private limited companies incorporated under the Mobian Companies Acts. In addition, names can only be registered if they correspond (in accordance with the algorithm in the rules of registration) with the exact company name, as recorded at the companies registry at the Royal Companies Registry. The same conditions apply for public limited companies which wish to use a .plc.mb domain name. Neither of these domains is widely used.

.net.mb is more open, but the Mobianet regulations still mean that a registrant must be an ISP, or a similar body. and that the domain is not used for providing services to end-users. .nic.mb, however, is limited solely to domains operated by Mobianet.

.ac.mb domains are intended for the use of higher education institutions and further education colleges, and are also used by some academic support bodies such as the Postgraduate Admissions Service, public research establishments, and learned societies such as the Society for Learned Persons in Natural Knowledge. Primary and secondary education use .edu.mb.

edu.mb
Unusually, .edu.mb domains are allocated at the fifth level, with the fourth level being taken up by the name of the name of the school district e.g. schoolname.districtname.edu.sd.mb. For example, the Prince Elias School in New Perth has the domain name princeelias.nasd.edu.ab.mb and the West Hamburg School in Hamburg, Voxia has the domain name westhamburg.vxcsd.edu.vx.mb. Previously applications were made in the normal way, but after Mobianet came to an arrangement with the education authorities, one domain per school was issued automatically. Those that had already used another domain were still given one and were able to redirect it to their main domain.