Companies and other individuals who do not take action quickly to guard their brand identity risk losing the domain name to other companies or cybersquatters, says Hostway.

With 60 percent of the world population living in the Asia-Pacific region, and in excess of 400 million Internet users, companies may be dangering their pan-Asian product identity if they fail to register for their domain name, says Hostway. This can produce undermining of company trademarks and the costly re-acquisition of the name afterward.

Thomas Herbert, product manager at Hostway stated “With global brands such as Google investing strongly in this area, exemplified by its acquisition of a stake in Chinese social networking site Tianya, the Asian market is seeing significant potential for growth at the moment. Anyone who hasn’t yet registered shouldn’t waste any more time. The cost is minimal especially when you compare it to the cost of not registering.”

Throughout the land rush period, which is open until March 12, the .asia registry will consider all domain name registration applications as received simultaneously, giving companies the chance to bid on domains with numerous applicants. After a break to process applications, the live registration period will begin again on March 26 where registrations will be considered on a first-come-first-served basis.

Hostway’s North American division launched two .asia promotions earlier this month.

Hostway says that customers who pre-register .asia domain names that go to auction during the sunrise or land rush periods are entitled to obtain three percent cash back if their bid is successful. This offer only applies to bids with at least a payout of $30 under the cash back inducement, which compares to a $1,000 bid, says the company.

Additionally, until February 19, anybody who pre-registers under the land rush registration period for a .asia top-level domain name will get a $10 refund when the name is successfully registered, says Hostway. The standard annual registration price is $24.95 per year with a two-year minimum registration, however the promotion allows customers to get the first year of registration for $14.95.

Robert Birkner, general manager of Hostway Canada stated “We’re leading the industry with this .asia promotion to help our customers beat the competition for the best domain names. With three percent cash back on winning auctions and a $10 rebate, the more domain names you register, the more you save.”

Earlier this week, Hostway entered into a joint venture agreement with security solutions provider Alert Logic.

70 percent of the Egypt’s Internet network was down and India’s bandwidth has been cut in half, leaving its money-spinning outsourcing industry trying to redirect traffic to satellites and supplementary cables through Asia, according to reports by Reuters,.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain have also been experiencing harsh connection issues but Israel, Lebanon and Iraq have been able to circumvent the crippling disaster either since the country has been using a dissimilar route or its government has organized backup satellite systems in case of cable malfunction

Above and beyond the Internet, the outage has also been the source of key disruption to television and phone services, creating turmoil for the UAE’s public and private sectors.

According to reports, officials at Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology think a boat’s anchor may have been the root of the crisis, even though this has yet to be established. The damage has been traced to an undersea cable situated between Alexandria, Egypt and Palermo, Italy.

Government agencies and ISPs from Nothern Africa and the Middle East estimate the damage will take up to two weeks to secure.