Recently, I had an opportunity to conduct an interview with Khashayar Mahdavi, the CEO of Telnic.org. The interview was well timed with the “General Availability” period of the .tel TLD just around the corner (at 15:00 GMT on 24 March 2009). The purpose of the interview was intended for two purposes:

1. to extract as much information about .tel’s
2. and encourage public acceptance of this new TLD.

I am grateful to Mr. Mahdavi and to Telnic.org as an organization for taking time off from their busy schedule to answer the following questions:

1. What is the business mission of Telnic?

We’re celebrating this year the twentieth anniversary of the invention of the World Wide Web by Sir Tim Berners-Lee.  .tel is probably the biggest innovation that is happening to the internet since this development and the launch of .com.  Our mission is to simplify communications by allowing every company and individual to have an online presence without a website.

2. How did .tel TLD come into existence and who was behind the idea of launching this unique domain extension?

Around 2000, Telnic was looking at the convergence of voice and internet communications and concluded that if individuals and businesses were to benefit in the future from this convergence, they needed a single point of communications from which to manage all the ways in which they could be contacted.  This point of permanence had to be communications channel-independent, be under their control and be simple enough for people to remember fairly easily.  The one way Telnic decided that this could be achieved was through the use of a top level domain to deliver this service platform.

At the same time, as ICANN was forming, it decided to open up applications for new top level domains such as .tel.  After spending a good deal of time working on the concept and the technology proof, using the DNS as the database for individuals and businesses to store and publish this communications information, we applied and, in May 2006, the .tel domain was awarded to Telnic.

After that, we had to also negotiate for a change in the WHOIS to be implemented so that private information could be hidden for consumers, in conjunction with the encryption services for private data offered in the .tel, so it took a little more time before we were ready to release the .tel to the world.  The first .tel domain was sold on 3rd December 2008.

3. .Tel is different from other top level domains in that it is fully DNS based. Could you please elaborate more on this feature?

The .tel is the first domain that is dedicated to communications and that allows people to store, publish and update online all their contact information and keywords under their domain name, without the need for a website.   This means .tel it has a totally different purpose than other domains.  Instead of linking domain names to IP addresses of websites, we’re storing and publishing contact information directly in the DNS.

For example, telnic.tel  does not return an IP Address as with other domains. It returns the contact information and keywords that our company chose to store directly in the DNS. You can then click on one of the contact details provided (tel, email, fax, location, website, etc…) and immediately reach us.

We believe that .tel the biggest innovation since .com because of this new purpose and service, and we expect it to spur innovative monetization strategies and drive significant growth in the domain name industry.  We’re bringing a different and new value to the domain name market which will benefit everyone.

4. How do you see .tel competing with .com, .net or other gTLDs?

.tel is in a league of its own.  It in no way competes with existing TLDs as it doesn’t offer the same functionality.  Try navigating through 20 hyperlinks on a mobile phone using a traditional website such as .com and then try navigating through largeco.tel.  You will see the difference especially on your cellphone bill!

5. How successful had .tel registrations been in its sunrise and landrush period?

We’ve seen tens of thousands of .tel domain applications over the Sunrise and Landrush period and, given this is such a fundamentally different offering, we believe that it is appealing to a need.  We believe that success will build as we get through General Availability and the pricing will come right down, especially as new types of resellers get involved, including telecommunications operators, directory service providers and social and business networks.

6. Why should a high traffic, brand name business register a .tel domain name?

Imagine you go abroad for a weekend and you want to rent a car when you get there.  Wouldn’t it be simpler just to type in hertz.tel on your mobile and just be connected to them?  One of the major reasons why the mobile internet has not taken off is because downloading websites on mobile phones is cumbersome and expensive, especially when roaming.  .tel solves this amongst other issues.

7. Why should a low traffic, small website owner register a .tel domain name?

For someone with a website, the pairing of a .tel with a .com does provide good search engine optimization in all of the tests we’ve done (for example, searching for largeco in Google brings up first and/or second results).  But equally, the ability for a business to be discovered over any device connected to the internet provides them with the ability to have an instant mobile presence and target the one area of growth in internet access.  Additionally, .tel provides a listing in a global directory at the fraction of the price of a traditional listing, with significantly more space and functionality, means that people will always be able to reach you regardless of where they are.

8. What does .tel offer that cannot be achieved by simply using an alternative TLD, such as, .com, .info, etc?

Quite simply, .tel is a service rather than a top level domain.  It provides the ability to publish online under your own domain without needing to build, host and maintain a website.  It also offers a low-cost, accessible and easy to manage central address where anyone can connect with you and where you can share private information securely and easily, all under your own control.  And all of this is accessible in the right format for any device, making monetizing the mobile internet through new tools for domainers (such as premium rate telephone numbers, SMS voting and downloads etc) much more simple and suitable for mobile devices.

There you have it! Hope this interview has answered most of your pending queries about .tel domain service. If you have any further questions, do list them as comments. I will be happy to answer them.

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