A new domain in the works? Do ‘.tel’
Proposal might help consumers manage an array of contact details
— reported by the Houston Chronicle
[snip]
To help people manage all their contact information online, the Internet’s key oversight agency is considering a “.tel” domain name. If approved, the domain could be available this year.
As proposed, individuals could use a “.tel” Web site to provide the latest contact information and perhaps even let friends initiate calls or send text messages directly from the site. Businesses could use a “.tel” site to determine customers’ locations and route them automatically to the correct call center.
Its proponents also envision “.tel” as a place from which the various people-finding services on the Internet could pull the latest contact information as individuals move about. Now, data typically come from third-party sources such as phone listings, which may be old or incomplete, particularly if an entire household is listed under one name.
And telephony applications and devices yet to be built could one day make use of such data, especially as wireless and wireline networks converge, according to London-based Telnic, which proposed and would run the domain if it is approved.
There’s nothing inherent in “.tel” that would enable these features; rather, its aim is to create a place to which people would know to go to find contact information.
[snip]
