.info elb.com .info registration problems

[amosba]

I've just tried to register a couple more .info's at ELB.com and the registrations failed. Interestingly, the failure message included the order status of "2104 : Billing failure". I searched on Google and the first link was Appendix B - Helpful Howto for EPP registrars which says of error 2104:

This could mean a few things. The most command cause is that the registrar is out of funds in the registry. Further retries of the command will fail until the registrar's account balance is increased. Some registries may implement a "low threshold" notification system so that registrars can be warned when their balance runs dangerously low. If the registrar's balance is not the problem, then the server may be experiencing internal problems. The registry operator should be contacted in this case to report the problem.

Although this is in the .org information, the EPP protocol spec includes this little gem:

2104 "Billing failure"
This response code MUST be returned when a server attempts to execute a billable operation and the command can not be completed due to a client billing failure.

This would appear to indicate that ELB have run out of credit with the .info registrar (Afilias) and they cannot register any more domains until they add more funds to their account. It looks as though their $0.25 sale was more popular than they expected... When they deposit more money registrations will work again - unless they run out again.

Does anyone know the wholesale rate for .info names? Surely ELB must be losing a bundle with this promo?

 

[netzilla]

I bet they are...I regged 30 myself and a few others registered 100+ here so I imagine that it was a buying storm from all over the net.