So there are three companies
going for the .Tel gTLD but which one has the best proposal???As a freelance journalist
who writes on telecommunications and its convergence which the computing industry,
especially the Internet, I have read all three applications with great interest.
Of
the three applications, the weakest one has to be the proposal submitted by Number.tel
LLC. The opportunities that the .tel gTLD could offer have been completely missed.
According to section C5 Appropriateness of the Community, Number.tel envisage .tel
to be used as a secondary domain name by companies to provide a link to existing
an website. e.g. Motorola would buy Motorola.tel but it would just point to the existing
Motorola.com site. In addition, other companies and businesses that already have
an established domain name would use it. Why?
When compared to the other two proposals
this is a complete waste of a good opportunity to change the way we use and access
the Internet. Both the Telnic and the Pulvar are looking towards the future of communications
and how the Internet is accessed. With the advent of 3G and the mobile internet there
will soon be millions of additional internet enabled devices the majority of which
will be capable of VoIP and all needing a static IP address.
Pulvar are suggesting
that the .tel domain name is just, I quote, 'a pointer to the appropriate location
where authoritative Internet address information is stored for a given number.' Mmmmmm
this seems as if you have, for example, a .tel web address that decomposes down to
an individual IP number which then, in turn, points to this other number which finally
accesses a device. A bit of a long winded approach.
Telnic are suggesting that
.tel domain name is the device number, after all what could be simpler. (Because
every domain name breaks down to a number as stated above.) Thus the .tel gTLD becomes
I quote again 'an uncomplicated IP-based telephone addressing system between any
two or more Internet enabled devices, or between two or more devices where at least
one is Internet enabled.'
Although Telnic has not gone into detail about has this
works; they have included with their application a letter of confirmation that the
process works from Ericsson. Telnic used Ericsson's broadband UMTS platform to carry
out some practical demonstrations… In my book this makes these people a serious contender
to get the .tel gTLD and the application that they have put forward about a length
in front of the application from Pulvar.
P.S. Pulvar want to start with just
IP enabled fixed line phones before, some time in the future, making it available
to other Internet enabled IP devices, whereas Telnic are looking to enable any IP
device from the word go.
If any one else out there has actually read all three
proposals I would be interested and will respond to any responses.
Cheers,
R.
Jackson
Richie Rich Kid