How To Register .com.jm Jamaican Domain Name

Submitted by xyoni on May 24, 2011 - 12:40am

Overview

This post is a collection of things I've learned about registering domain names that end in .JM. The (.JM) Jamaican ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain) is managed by the University of The West Indies, Mona. To get a Jamaican domain name you have to register with them. Getting your own Jamaican domain name is FREE OF COST. Technically, all you have to do is ask for it, politely. They currently only offer: .com.jm, .org.jm, .edu.jm. Government agencies (or an agent for them such as web development company) can get .gov.jm and so on. If you want just .jm extension you may need to know somebody important as they say they aren't giving those out now (could be a 'technical' reason).

How To Register Your *.jm Jamaican Domain

They require you to fill out a text based form and submit to their contact personnel. The form can be found here: Registration Form. Copy and paste this text document and edit it's parts based on the instructions contained therein, then email to the contact person it mentions (don't send as a word document, edit and send the text plain and simple as the body of your email). I created a more 'modern' version of this form, try it here. Once you fill out and send off the form cross your fingers and pray! Response times are notoriously slow and information is hard to come by (which is why I wrote this post in the first place).

A Few Technical Details

For those new to the business of websites, it may be important to clarify the type of service that U.W.I. offers; which is domain name registration ONLY. To setup a website, you need:

Hosting space
Nameserver that points to your hosting space (often times bundled as a 'hosting package').
Register your domain with UWI (telling them who your nameserver is from point 2).

You should at the very least have a nameserver worked out when you attempt to register your domain name with U.W.I. Popular hosting providers will tell you what your nameserver is, if not you can ask. Make sure to not make any mistakes in spelling or specifying the IP address of your designated nameservers on the form.

You will also need to setup the necessary A and CNAME records on your host, but I suspect that most popular hosting providers will automatically do this for you once you tell them what domain you would like to host or by specifying an add-on or parked domain in the popular CPANEL software.

If all of this sounds like too much work, Contact me to provide you with consultation and hosting services to get you started.

The System Is Broken

Why is it so hard to register a Jamaican domain? I have heard that the business of registering new domains is currently handled by a single person. It is only a single task of the many he/she has to do each day. How could we improve this system in the long term? Could we find a way to automate the registration and management process like most other countries and TLDs are run internationally? I have seen one or two services that claim to offer .jm domain registrations at prices ranging from 19.95USD per year to 65USD per year. I could not verify their authenticity at the time of this posting but how do these fit with the current free service offered by the UWI? We may be better served to commercialise .jm domain registration 'an done'.

The irony of this post is that I wrote this when my primary domain paulallen.com.jm went down because I changed my hosting provider and consequently my nameservers were changed. Now I need to notify UWI of the changes to my nameserver configurations but there is no EASY way to do this except to send an e-mail to a guy and ask him politely. Wish me luck.

Update #1: Registering .gov.jm

To register for a .gov.jm domain, it has to go through CITO (Central Information Technology Office, http://www.cito.gov.jm/). Apparently there is some understanding between the two to ensure that only legitimate government entities get registered with these domains. *suggested by Samuel Marshall*

Feedback

Did this post help you? Any part of it that wasn't clear enough or something you would add? If so please leave a comment. Help me to improve it for everyone's sake.

Comments

Submitted by Kirk (not verified) on July 14, 2011 - 9:36pm.

Thanks for the post! I'm about to use your contact form and apply for a domain name and I did see a website claiming to be automated but I did not fall for it because I wasn't sure and luckily I found your post! Many Thanks now I hope someone approves my domain name by next week!

Submitted by xyoni on July 15, 2011 - 10:48am.

Good luck! Hope the form worked for you as well. Please report any issues you find/found.

Submitted by Samuel Marshall (not verified) on September 13, 2011 - 6:36am.

Good to put this post out there. Sorry it wasn't there some time ago the first time I registered my .com.jm domain. These guys who are charging 19.95USD a year are actually using this form to register your domain for you. They're really just a middle man knowing how to contact these guys from UWI. Why the annual fee? They couldn't explain either. I eventually found out when I wanted my registration changed and after not getting through with my 'registrar', my investigations led me to UWI where I met the guy myself. So it helps if you find the office and speak to someone directly and follow up with a phone call or two.

Just to add though, to register for a .gov.jm domain, it has to go through CITO (Central Information Technology Office, http://www.cito.gov.jm/). Apparently there is some understanding between the two to ensure that only legitimate government entities get registered with these domains.