For an explanation of the large zone growth rate have a look at the April 1996 edition or the following table:
population | #zones | %zones
---------------+--------+--------
0 | 25056 | 38.4
1 | 27905 | 42.8
2 - 9 | 7245 | 11.1
10 - 99 | 3864 | 5.9
100 - 999 | 1039 | 1.6
1000 - 9999 | 107 | 0.2
10000 - 99999 | 8 | 0.0
>= 100000 | 0 | 0.0
---------------+--------+--------
| 65224 | 100.0
From this breakdown of zone count by number of hosts (population) it is rather obvious that the vast majority (>80%) of the zones is nearly empty and therefore not contributing very much to the total count. Reasons for this are sometimes firewalls, where only one system is announced to the outside and the internal structure is not published via DNS. Far more often the unfortunately very popular DNS abuse www.your-favorite-keyword-for-search.de is responsible, where a second level domain is registered for every product or brand name a company offers.
No trouble tickets were sent out this month due to timing constraints.
The long lasting record in the longest hostname contest has been equalized. There are now two hostnames consisting of 69 characters each:
uli-eder.ludwig-uhland-institut.sozialwissenschaften.uni-tuebingen.de www.edb-bildungsgesellschaft-fuer-erfolgreiche-berufe-gmbh-velbert.de
The new record holder also shows the longest second level domain name registered under DE, having a second level label of 62 characters, which is only one less than the maximum as per STD 13.