What happens when a Domain Registar is down for months with no end in sight?

[usernamebias]

The registrar is Register.To -

Website has been showing same message for months.

Twitter account is silent since January.

What options do I have?

I would love to login and transfer my domains, but I am unable to login. Since page is completely down.

The TLD belong to the Republic of Tonga.

This is unprecedented. And I'm at a lost.

Do domains expire on said Registar regardless?

I have a very Profitable SaaS on a .To domain.

If it goes down , I'm looking at $10k/day in loss revenue.

[shagie]

Contact the Tonga Network Information Center ( https://www.tonic.to ).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.to#cite_ref-6

> The .to registry allows the creation of emoji domain names. A former .to registrar, Register.TO, did support the search and registration of .to emoji domain names. Register.to is no longer an authorized registrar for .TO domain names when making a transaction. The death of its owner in early February 2023 was stated by the NIC of Tonga according to an online review.

[blacksqr]

Sounds like someone ought to step up and pitch themselves as the new domain registrar for Tonga.

[shagie]

https://www.iana.org/domains/root/db/to.html

Tonic.to appears to be the authorized domain registrar. Register.to appears to have been a reseller.

[usernamebias]

Edit: I contacted Tonic and they got this resolved. I' so relieved.

I searched the Internet for any Representative, to no avail.

Thank you, shagie, your link did the trick.

[shagie]

In some later searching... the name in IANA and that it was in Burlingame piqued my interest - Eric Gullichsen is a rather distinctive name.

Some of the history of the domain can be read at Domain Names, Tonga and Two Guys Named Eric - https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-06-09-fi-1560-s...

(and amusing to me the email address of the reporter was @best.com - and I remember that ISP from my days out there too).

[usernamebias]

Does this mean Tonic has the ability to access Domains? Or that's not how it works.

[usernamebias]

Oh dear.

Edit: In contact with Tonic.to. They are looking into it.