Nearly 27,700 ".vn" domain names were created in the first three months of this year, increasing the total number of ".vn" domain names to 354,608.

This information was revealed by the Ministry of Information and Communications.

There were also 222,660 Vietnamese domain names created in the first quarter of this year, bringing the total number of Vietnamese domain names to 971,679.

Regarding the management of the Vietnamese domain names, the Viet Nam Internet Network Information Centre (VNNIC) in mid-April said the centre had implemented a purification programme that freed inactive Vietnamese domain names from the beginning of March.

The programme aims to avoid wastage of the nation's Internet resources. More than 25,000 Vietnamese domain names were purged a month after the programme was adopted.

The purification programme will continue until December this year.

In the first quarter, VNNIC also organised two training courses on the management of ".vn" domain names with registrations in Ha Noi and HCM City.

These training courses will enhance the quality of management for ".vn" domain names.

The ministry said the total number of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) addresses in Viet Nam hit nearly 15.8 million in the first quarter. The IPv4, the fourth version in the development of the Internet Protocol, is one of the core protocols of standards, based on internet working methods and routes most of the traffic on the Internet.

According to the ministry, Viet Nam has completed its targets for the second phase of the national action programme on IPv6 and is ready to move to the third phase. IPv6, the upgraded version of IPv4, with larger address space, will help deal with IPv4 exhaustion.

Implemented on May 6, 2013, the national IPv6 network is stable with nine ISPs connected to the VNIX system domestically and many others connected internationally.

According to statistics revealed by international organisations, the IPv6 usage rate of Vietnamese customers reached 0.03 per cent from the earlier zero per cent .

VNS