Pitcairn became the first, and only country to date, to have its own domain reassigned, without the consent of the existing holder. Since April 2000, the .pn top-level domain registry has been operated from the offices of the Pitcairn Islands Administration in Auckland, New Zealand, on behalf of the inhabitants of Pitcairn. High among the aims of the Administration is the provision of Internet connectivity at an acceptable cost for all the inhabitants of Pitcairn. It is estimated that the installation of a satellite facility to allow high speed data transfer at a reasonable per-minute cost, could cost in the vicinity of USD500,000. It is now 12 months since the Administration regained stewardship of Pitcairn's domain and during that period, interest has continued to grow in the .pn tld to a level where there are now some 1,760 .pn Internet domain names registered.
People frequently ask why it is that so many names are registered under .pn.
For many organisations, it appears that the reason is brand name protection. Still others see the letter pn as standing for Personal Name or Phone Number and register their own name or phone number as their address. For further detail about the .pn domain name register and how it is operated, click here .