.tel
 | |
| Introduced | 2005 |
|---|---|
| TLDtype | Sponsored top-level domain |
| Status | Approved |
| Registry | Telnames Limited |
| Sponsor | Telnames Limited |
| Intended use | Contact Details |
| Registration restrictions | None |
| Structure | Direct second-level registrations are permitted; single digits and single-numeric domains are restricted |
| Documents | ICANN New sTLD RFP Application,Policies |
| Dispute policies | UDRP,Sunrise dispute resolution procedure[1] |
| Registry website | Telnames |
The domain name.telis atop-level domain(TLD) in theDomain Name System(DNS) of the Internet. It was approved byICANNas asponsored top-level domain,and is operated by Telnic.[2]Telnic announced in January 2011 that over 300,000 domains had been registered since the start of general availability on 24 March 2009. A substantial drop of mostlyIDN.tel's occurred at the beginning of 2014. The total number of registered websites under.tel as of 9 October 2023 is approximately 43,227.[3]
The domain's purpose is to provide a single name space for Internet communications services. Subdomain registrations serve as a single point of contact for individuals and businesses, providing a global contact directory service by hosting all types of contact information directly in the Domain Name System, without the need to build, host or manage a traditional web service. Additionally, as of July 2010, every.tel domain acts as anOpenIDand an increasing number ofVoice over Internet Protocol(VoIP) clients can address a.tel domain name directly.[4]The TLD implementation also supports thehCardmicro-format.[5]
Administration of domains
[edit]Telnic started publicly accepting applications for name registrations on 3 February 2009 after a closed Sunrise period for trademark holders. Information in.tel can be controlled by the owner through a website control panel that Telnic has created for registrars to provide to their customers, or through free clients forBlackBerry,Microsoft Outlook,iPhone,Androidand some third party VoIP softphone clients. With the introduction of support forOAuthin July 2010, however, new third-party clients and services are available to tel registrants for publishing records to their domains securely, including the possibility of editing information offline via SMS gateways.[6]The control panel is an open source application, and can be changed or completely replaced by registrars, as theapplication programming interfacesrequired to managetelinformation in the DNS were released by Telnic in October 2008.
When viewed over the Web, all tel domains point directly to a Telnic proxy webpage that is populated on the fly presenting the respective domain name owner's contact data stored within the DNS.teldomains can also be accessed without opening a browser on many devices through open source applications[7]or through direct DNS lookups.
Since 13 March 2017 additionally othername serverscould be set for tel domains, which allows administration ofdomain name systemrecords. Now tel domains behave like ordinary domains and could be used forweb hostingandemail.
Technical overview
[edit]In contrast to othertop-level domains,.tel information is stored directly within theDomain Name System(DNS), within the actual domain name record, as opposed to the DNS simply returning details (such asIP addresses) of the machines on which information can be found. For example, users who register a.tel domain using Telnic name servers cannot create a type AResource Recordwith the IP address of their own host. A user who wants to host aweb siteor run an ownweb serverhas to set own or providers' name servers.
As Telnic has enabled the DNS records to be encrypted using 1024-bit RSA with PKCS#1.5 padding[8]and stored in sub-folders which are hidden until paired with a public private key handshake with individuals, there is protection from spammers. As.tel also supports any type of contact information, concierge services like temporary email addresses, temporary telephone numbers and so on can all be utilized for additional protection of public information.
Reliability of data
[edit]The.tel TLD was released to trademark holders only until 3 February 2009, perhaps suggest that the resulting database of contact information can somehow be trusted as the official contact information of the rightful owner of those trademarks. However, after the short period of registrations restricted to trademark holders only (the Sunrise period[9]), anyone willing to pay a premium price was allowed to buy any domain name (the Landrush period[10]) regardless of who owned the trademark.
Furthermore, during General Availability,[11]anyone is able to register any name (assuming that it is available for registration) without paying a premium price.
The information held under the.tel domain is no more accurate or trustworthy than any other user defined data held in the DNS. It will be down to individual.tel owners to choose what they wish to store there.
As with all other gTLDs, trademark owners can utilize theUniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy(UDRP) to claim trademarked domains back.
Differences from domain.mobi
[edit]Since some of the services that are expected to use tel domains can be achieved on mobile telephones, there may be overlap with the intended use of themobidomain, which was also approved by ICANN in the same round.
However,.tel is about publishing contact data: phone numbers,SIPaddresses and so on directly in theDNS,not onHTML-based websites.,[12]whereas the focus of the.mobi domain is providing web sites and other content formatted specifically for the user interface available on mobile phones and othermobile devices.
Alternative usage proposal
[edit]Pulver (operated byJeff Pulver) also submitted an application[13]for the.tel TLD, but had a different intent. This proposal involved telephone number style numeric identifiers. Alternative viewpoints claimed that this either complemented or conflicted withtelephone number mapping(ENUM). Purely numeric identifiers have now been approved for release by Telnic[14]and will be released later in 2011, with the restriction that single-digit.tel domains be withheld in order to avoid confusion with ENUM.
References
[edit]- ^"Telnic | FAQ".Telnic.org. Archived fromthe originalon 6 January 2009.Retrieved6 January2009.
- ^"Telnic web site".Telnic.org. Archived fromthe originalon 2 March 2001.Retrieved29 February2012.
- ^"Domain Count Statistics for TLDs".DomainTools.Archived fromthe originalon 8 February 2014.Retrieved9 October2023.
- ^"voipGATE show off new.tel-powered apps at UCExpo « Telnic's Blog".Telnic.org. 11 March 2010. Archived fromthe originalon 21 March 2012.Retrieved29 February2012.
- ^"Telnic increases.tel data portabilitywith hCard, OAuth and OpenID"(PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 9 April 2011.Retrieved10 March2011.
- ^"Editing published information".Twitter.Retrieved29 February2012.
- ^"Telnic | Software".Dev.telnic.org. Archived fromthe originalon 4 March 2012.Retrieved29 February2012.
- ^"Protecting.tel Contact Data"(PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 28 July 2011.Retrieved10 March2011.
- ^"Sunrise".Archived fromthe originalon 14 June 2009.Retrieved12 February2009.
- ^"Landrush".Archived fromthe originalon 18 June 2009.Retrieved12 February2009.
- ^"General availability".Archived fromthe originalon 3 September 2009.Retrieved12 February2009.
- ^K. Mahdavi (6 May 2006)."Telnic's response to Neil Edwards' comments"(PDF).Retrieved6 January2009.
- ^– New sTLD RFP Application.tel-Pulver Part B. Application Form
- ^"ICANN approves short and numeric-only.tel domain names"(PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 24 May 2011.Retrieved10 March2011.