Objection to the .MOBI TLD Proposal
Bango.net is a provider of services to more than 5,000 mobile content providers. They used our technology and services to interact with more than 17million users during 2003, including more than 800,000 paying users - through Mobile phones - in more than 141 countries worldwide. We are a business partner of Vodafone, O2, Telefonica, Orange, T-Mobile, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Openwave, Microsoft and many other mobile operators and infrastructure providers. On behalf of Bango, thousands of our Content Provider partners, and the billions of future users of mobile devices, we request that ICANN swiftly rejects this proposal. The emergence of a ".mobi" TLD will delay the support for mobile devices for several reasons, and will harm a fast growing industry. (1) A different TLD will confuse users. Users are being educated to enter URL's into their browser. There are now more browsers connected to the internet through mobile phones than through PC's (although usage is far less). A content provider should be able to promote ONE "URL" and expect it will work through all devices. Assuming ".MOBI" founders spend time and money educating end users that ,MOBI means something, what then does "not .MOBI" mean? Companies can support mobile devices today from their existing domains. Some choose to, others do not. When Nokia promotes their game, would they say: Visit www.nokiagame.com from a PC or www.nokiagame.mobi from your Phone? Best to simply make www.nokiagame.com work from all potential devices. The W3C already provides for a HTTP_ACCEPT header to allow the same URL to be used across many device types - hiding complexity from users. (2) A different TLD "in progress" will give the sponsors a reason to delay "walking the talk" in supporting today's Mobile devices. For market growth and user satisfaction, it is important that as many services as possible are made available to mobile users, whatever device type they have. Things should be Reliable and easy. It is very strange that most of the sponsors of this "scheme", after several years, have still not embraced mobile devices with their own Internet sites. Example: You are reading the (printed) TLD proposal document in a cafe. You would like to know more about the participating companies. You enter the "URL" given by each company into your typical (WAP) phone: www.vodafone.com WORKS VERY WELL - High Satisfaction - How are you? Welcome to the world's largest mobile community All the others(tested on April 21st 2004) fail to provide any useful information, giving complicated error messages or gobledeygook: http://www.Three.com/ HTTP Error : 406 (No acceptable objects were found) www.gsmworld.com Not wml content : www.hp.com FAILED Not WML content: http://www.microsoft.com/ FAILED Not WML content: www.orange.com Appears to deliver an "empty" WAP page www.o2.co.uk FAILED Not WML content: Vignette V/5 www.sun.com FAILED Not WML content: etc. It is particularly disappointing that visiting www.nokia.com (or nokia.com) on most Nokia Mobile phones gives the message "file format unknown". For comparison, try more "mobile aware sites" such as www.bango.net www.winwap.org www.esato.com www.mopilot.com These sites provide service to both mobile and fixed users - simply and easily (3) If .MOBI is issued, it immediately opens the floodgates for more "similar" applications where the way the browser is connected is somehow encoded in the address of content. This will be a bad thing. .FIXED for devices that are not mobile .WIFI for devices constrained to hot-spots .CRYPT for devices that only talk over encrypted links .VISUAL for devices that have screens .SOUND for devices without screens etc etc. The application states: "A mobile TLD on the Internet creates the opportunity to streamline the deployment of new Internet sites optimized for mobile usage. This initiative is driven with the aim of simplifying the Internet experience for mobile subscribers and increasing the ease-of-use and speed of delivery of mobile services." On the contrary: A mobile TLD on the Internet will delay the deployment of new Internet sites optimized for mobile usage. The .MOBI initiative will complicate and confuse the Internet experience for mobile subscribers. It will complicate and slow down the delivery of mobile services. On behalf of Bango, thousands of our Content Provider partners, and the billions of future users of mobile devices, we request that ICANN swiftly rejects this proposal. If any of the sponsors need help in developing their web sites to enable them to better support mobile devices, as Vodafone has already done, we are certainly more than willing to help provide them with the appropriate information. Tel +44 7768 454545 Fax +44 20 7692 5558 ray@xxxxxxxxx |