.Tel Renewal of Telnic Registry Agreement

[Mike Seaton <mikeseaton77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Comments from Mike Seaton as a long-time .Tel User & Developer:
1. I have long been a fan of the "Data in the DNS" concept which would have 
made direct dialling and direct emailing etc feasible (i.e. without knowing the 
phone number or email address) but it is clear that this is not now going to 
happen with the .Tel extension. The system architect of this concept, Henri 
Asseily, ceased to have an active involvement in the running of Telnic/Telnames 
some time ago - check out his Telnames .tel (you can of course no longer 
register a Telnames .tel unless you already own one) at http://Henri.tel and 
you will find no mention of his involvement with Telnic/Telnames !
2. The problem with the CTH system (which does make it very easy for a user to 
input date into their .tel domain) is that it is NOT hosted by Telnic BUT by 
their registrars. This requires a registrar, just for one domain extension out 
of perhaps 500 or 1000 they sell, to tie up technical and system resources to 
handle this single extension. That may be fine if a registrar is selling tens 
of thousands of new .tel registrations a year, but they are not. So why should 
a registrar commit to using up staff and server resources for an extension that 
is currently failing and nowadays generates only a relatively low number of 
registrations/renewals each year ?
3. If .Tel was opened up to operate as a "normal" extension I believe there are 
many companies running the New gTLDs who could be interested in taking it over. 
.Tel is a great extension name for anything to do with communication - .Tel 
domains are very cheap in the resale market at the moment, though I doubt this 
would stay the case for long if it was opened up to allow normal web 
development to take place.
4. Telnic needs to be removed as the .Tel Registry. They have proved themselves 
incapable of seizing opportunities - for example they had a once-in-a-lifetime 
chance to get .tel on the world stage when Telnic's home city London hosted the 
2012 Olympics. What did they do - ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ! Most of their key staff 
have left, their offices are at their accountants, and the CEO's personal .tel 
site at http://Kash.tel is in a .tel format impossible to register (Telnames 
format - see http://www.Telnames.com) unless you already have registered a 
domain in this format - talk about CATCH 22 !
SO YES PLEASE - LET'S OPEN UP .TEL TO OPERATE AS A NORMAL EXTENSION AND GET RID 
OF TELNIC AS IT'S FAILED REGISTRY - THEY HAD THEIR CHANCE AND BLEW IT BIG-TIME !
http://MikeSeaton.tel
PS. See http://www.teltalk.org/t4387-afilias-wants-to-buy-failed-gtld#15215 for 
a possible buyer of the .Tel extension.