Directorio de dominios .tel

The .TEL Directory

Submit your .TEL domain and market your business regionally and globally!

 http://www.teldomains.info

Tips for running a business from your mobile

Ian Bowen-Morris It is possible to run a business from a mobile

Increasingly, companies are being run from mobile phones. Ian Bowen-Morris of Telnames gives some advice on how to manage your business this way.

As a small business owner, staying connected is crucial, not just to keep clients and contacts happy, but to avoid missing out on new business opportunities.
The good news is that with the advent of smartphones and tablets, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are no longer tethered to their desks.
It’s no secret that mobile use has boomed in recent years; according to eDigitalResearch, six out of ten UK residents now own a smartphone and a recent survey from Nielsen reveals that 68 per cent of UK smartphone owners use their device to check email, peruse the mobile web (66 per cent) and social networking (63 per cent).
But it’s not just consumers embracing smartphones. According to a recent PeoplePerHour poll, nine out of ten SMEs are using mobile phones and apps to stay connected, organised and informed at all times.

See also: Government helps to get business up and running

From client relations to social content creation, online banking, and emailing, small business owners are proving that running their business from a phone isn’t just an interesting idea – it’s a daily reality.

Embrace social media marketing

Whether you’re a FTSE 100 company or an SME, social media platforms provide a way to talk to customers directly and market your brand to a growing number of mobile consumers.
If you’re not already running business Twitter and Facebook profiles, you’re missing out on chance to connect and engage with customers – the trick here is to ensure your content relevant, interesting and useful. When it comes to organising your social media feeds, try using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to schedule future tweets and social updates weeks ahead.
While Facebook and Twitter tend to be where most companies start with social media, they’re not the only outlets. Platforms like Google+, Pinterest, Instagram and Vine are growing all the time. What’s important is finding the right fit for your company. For example, Pinterest and Instagram are image-led, so you need to think carefully about what works with your line of business.

Get optimised for mobile

No company can now afford to ignore the potential of mobile websites for customer acquisition. With Internet use on smartphones set to overtake desktop browsing in 2013, SMEs need to take full advantage of the boom in mobile search.
According to Google, half of all search queries on a mobile phone have local intent, so it’s essential you optimise your mobile website for your local area and improve your visibility in mobile search.
This will include ensuring your business is registered in free local listings like Google+Local, Bing for Business, Yelp, Brownbook, Hotfrog and Crunchbase. In terms of ranking factors, your business address, location targeted key works, local citations and location in the title tag are all important.
Finally, with 70 per cent of users taking action within an hour of completing a search on their smartphone, ensuring your website is mobile friendly website is a must.
According to Google, today’s online information searchers expect mobile websites to load in under five seconds, and make it easy to find the information they want – address, contact details, location details and map, opening hours and social network feeds.
Today’s hyper connected consumers won’t hang about waiting; 79 per cent of these local information seekers confirmed they’d quickly move onto another site if it didn’t deliver or perform against expectations.
As well as delivering what online searchers want, your mobile friendly website should be working hard for you. That means you need to be able to publish updates with ease and upload timely offers and vouchers that entice new customers and which you can promote via social media.

Become an innovator

The way small businesses interact with customers is changing thanks to the mobile internet, which makes it possible to be more responsive and more connected that ever before.
Offering a low cost way to directly communicate with consumers, every small business can take advantage of mobile marketing to push out notifications, get creative with social media, and stay visible in local online search.
UK SME’s are leading innovators in using mobile technologies to give their business the agility and responsiveness to compete alongside larger brands. Done right, marketing from your mobile is the perfect way to target potential or existing customers and add an extra personal touch.

Get .tel social!

Want to connect with customers in new ways? Why not tap into the power of smartphones and the use of popular mobile social apps to generate increased brand awareness?

Step 1: Reach out to mobile users with Facebook

Facebook is the number-one mobile social network. More and more, people are using their smartphones to keep up to date with friends and find out what’s happening right now with their favourite brands.
Keep your Facebook page updated with product news, customers stories and seasonal hints and tips to encourage activity (Likes, Comments and Shares) and positive feedback) from customers. The secret with Facebook Pages is to make sure the content you publish is valuable – not just interesting. It’s a great way of staying front of mind with your customer base.
Top .tel Tip: Why not ask questions to boost the amount of feedback you receive?

Step 2: Tweet all about it!

A massive 60% of Twitter users are on mobile and your Twitter profile is a great place to share breaking news, local updates and good conversations with your mobile customers.
If you want people to retweet your content, you need to leave room for your audience to have their say. This means creating Tweets with about 100 characters, as opposed to the maximum 140, enabling someone else add to a comment when they share your original message.

Top .tel Tip: Why not follow your brand’s biggest advocates? You can discover what else they may be interested in as well acknowledging their custom and showing interest. 

Step 3: Get seen on Instagram

Easily integrated into Facebook and Twitter, Instagram is one of the most popular mobile apps and is a great way to give your more visual products and services a greater impact.
The key to success on Instagram is high quality pictures. The better the quality the more attention you’ll get. Describe the picture in the description, creating hashtags from keywords. Encourage your followers to use a particular hashtag that you can monitor – or even use for a promotion.
Publishing to Instagram includes the option to publish to other platforms like Facebook and Twitter, making your job easier and enabling your content to be more widely seen.
Top .tel Tip: As well as using photos taken with your phone, you can upload images taken and editing via other devices. 

Step 4: Bring it .tel together

Visitors to your Telnames mobile optimised website can instantly access your social media profiles  via instant click-to-visit links. Once there they can sign up, become a follower and stay up to date with all your news and hot promotions.
A handy ‘Social Sharing’ button makes it easy for visitors to your .tel mobile website to conveniently share your web address on their own Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts, as well as by email.
With more and more people engaging with social applications from their phone while on the move, you should be using mobile to connect with your customers and extend your reach.
Your .tel mobile website makes it even easier to harness the power of social marketing and boost visibility of your brand with customers old and new!

Telnames Launches Innovative Publishing Platform for its wholesale channel with jBilling

Telnames

Company

Telnames

Industry

Limited Liability

Challenge

• Find a billing solution with a customizable user interface
• Accommodate specific billing requirements
• Find a scalable billing system that can handle company growth.

Solution

• jBilling 3

Results

• A billing solution that is aligned with company functional requirements
• A billing solution that allows for scalability as business grows
• Development of a flexible and user friendly interface

Telnames Launches Innovative Publishing Platform for its wholesale channel with jBilling

Based in London, United Kingdom, Telnames provides professionals and businesses with a simple, low-cost service to help with online discovery and promotion. Using the award-winning .tel domain, they provide customers with a simple and effective online presence that they can own and update.

Challenge

Telnames needed a billing engine to support the roll out of its services to the wholesale channel. As with any e-commerce based solution, a billing system was a critical requirement. “We were starting from scratch,” says Gareth Jehu, Telnames’s Operations Director. “Our challenge was to find a billing product where the customization and on-going maintenance cost was minimal.”
Finding the most cost effective billing solution wasn’t Telnames’s only problem. “We had a very specific process we wanted to follow,” Jehu says. “We were open to a lot of billing systems, as long as they were flexible enough to allow for customization to fit within that process.”

“We wanted to minimize the amount of customization work, which meant that we needed an off the shelf billing system that was a good match for our ‘specific functional requirements. In this regard, jBilling proved to be the best fit.”

Telnames needed a solution that could easily handle its different billing scenarios. “We needed to be able to bill customers in multiple currencies, produce consolidated invoices and transaction statements and handle multiple VAT scenarios,” says Jehu.
That wasn’t all Telnames was looking for. “We needed API integration with our own product provisioning system. We had to be able to set low watermark thresholds, and lock accounts if credit levels dropped below a certain amount,” Jehu continues. “Invoices needed to be produced in hard and soft copy, we needed to be able to private label, and export to a third party accounting system.”
With this long list of requirements in mind, Telnames began an in depth search to find the billing solution that was best suited to its unique needs.

Solution

After investigating many billing solutions, Telnames selected jBilling, an enterprise, open source billing solution that could be easily customized.
As Jehu points out, “jBilling’s extensibility allowed us to alter the user interface in a way that was specific to our requirements. For example, we changed the navigation tabs so that we have a ‘Renewals’ tab, which gives a wholesale provider a list of domain names and renewal dates,” he says. “We also added a notification at the top of the screen so that a customer always knows their current balance.”
Telnames took advantage of many features that jBilling offers straight out of the box. “There was no need to create and integrate with a separate portal,” Jehu says. “jBilling gave us the ability to allow the customer to login to our customized user interface. By using different permissions, we could also dictate what the customer could see and do in the system.”

“jBilling allowed us to create the wholesale system we wanted. From an end-user perspective, we were able to customize the customer’s view of jBilling so that they only see what they need to see.”

When it came to their specific requirements, Telnames once again used features that jBilling already offered. “We used jBilling’s pre-paid functionality to make sure that a customer’s account is in credit, in order for them to process billable transactions,” Jehu says. “If a customer makes a deposit of 200 dollars, and that payment is applied to their account, the sales invoice is automatically generated and available for them to download.”

Results

jBilling was easily customizable and had features that matched Telnames’s billing requirements. Due to this fact, Telnames found jBilling to be the perfect solution. “The user interface now matches our requirements,” says Jehu. “If we want to make any changes, we have the flexibility to do so at any time. As our company grows, the added benefit is that our billing solution is completely scalable.”

“jBilling’s team has a very good at understanding our requirements and recommending the best way to approach and deliver those requirements. I don’t think that we have ever come across something that we can’t do.”

Aside from being flexible and scalable, jBilling proved to be the best fit for what was needed in other ways as well. “We didn’t want to invest heavily in an enterprise billing engine. It would have been overkill for the stage of evolution that the business is at,” says Jehu. “Using jBilling, we managed to create the working model we wanted without carrying any massive overhead cost.”




“The bottom line was that we needed a billing system that could control all the finances associated with the sale of the product and the customer’s compounds. jBilling not only gave us the flexibility to achieve this goal, but also provided us with the features that we required, in a way that met our requirements and budget.”

Directorio http://www.thomsonlocal.com/

New Telnames Value Added Reseller registered about 400 .tels

The British directory www.thomsonlocal.com registered about 400 Telnames yesterday.

The websites are still empty, as example:

www.cherishedpetproducts.tel
www.clarkhowes.tel
www.click4acab.tel

How-To Guide: Get Liked to Get Noticed

Your .tel name makes it easy to get ‘liked’, get noticed and get shared. All of which helps boost your visibility in local search.
There’s been lots of discussion lately about how social media can help generate more traffic to your site. The good news is a .tel name mobile friendly website makes it easy for visitors to publicly share links to your site; enabling your content to be seen by a wider audience and generating more opportunities for links to be shared.
.Tel.us: What’s the challenge?
Encouraging satisfied customers to promote your .tel mobile website is a great way of generating invaluable free publicity among their contacts.
Exposure is a key way to growing a small business. And we all know that social media is great for creating a buzz around your business and brand.
But social media can also help you improve your positioning in search engines, thanks to links. They’re a great way to spread the word about what you do, and at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing and advertising.
.Tel us: Practical steps and top tips
It’s the age of social media in which sharing content has become the norm. So, if you don’t have social sharing buttons on your mobile website, then you should think again.
Basic share buttons like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Pinterest allow visitors to share your content with their friends and colleagues, extending the word to a wider audience. And you don’t even have to lift a finger.
The aim of the game is to put your online profiles and social platforms to work and social media buttons make it easy for visitors to Like, Share and Recommend you to their social networks and contacts. The more your content is shared, the more backlinks you’ll generate, and the higher your search rankings will be.
The good news is that every .tel name has link buttons that make it easy to share your site with family, friends, customers or business partners.
.Tel us: The benefits
A visitor to your .tel name can share it in one of four ways.

1. The Facebook ‘Like’ button shares a link to your .tel name with all your visitor’s Facebook friends.
2. The Twitter button allows visitors to tweet links to your .tel to all their followers on Twitter. The default message is “Please check out [yourname.tel]” but this can be modified by the person making the tweet.
3. The mail button opens a new email so that a visitor can email their contacts a link to your .tel name. By default, the email title is your .tel name.
4. The Google+ ‘+1’ button shares a link to your .tel name with selected circles in your visitor’s Google+ profile.

You can ask customers to promote your page in a variety of ways with posts on social media, or by email– such as in the footer of an order confirmation – or through word of mouth. Just one tweet could mean your .tel name could get seen by thousands of people, so start getting noticed on social networks today.

Name.com newsletter from yesterday:

Name.com newsletter from yesterday:



Since you currently have a .TEL domain name, we wanted to share some cool new information about the .TEL extension.

• As of today, 8-digit (or longer), all-numerical .TEL domain names are available for registration on a first-come, first-serve basis.
• What's this mean? You can now register your full phone number as a domain name, such as 1234567890.tel.
• It's a great way to brand your phone number as your online business card, create a domain name for your customer support line, or get your phone number indexed by search engines.

Register a new .TEL for $9.99.

Finally the missing indirect recognition from the telecommunication world towards TEL capability ?

Best positive buzz ever towards all -numeric dot TEL usecases ignited by ... ITU a few days ago !!!

Finally the missing indirect recognition from the telecommunication world towards TEL capability ?

A special cum laude mention indirectly awarded by ITU to :
- shortcodes ( also shortcodes directories ?)
- national phone numbers  ( also national or regional phone directories ? )
- international phone numbers in ITU-T E.164 format

ITU letter to ICANN, Geneva 11 October 2013 wrote:
.../...
ITU must express its concern about TELNIC’s recent announcement launching an “all numeric .tel domains” service from 15 October 2013. This raises a number of policy, legal, and practical implications on the potential usage of all-digit strings, not only under .TEL domain, but also under any future telephony-related new gTLDs
… /...

We are seeking this clarification as the digit strings appear similar to telephone numbers and could be used in a manner similar to telephone numbers, which may confuse customers or cause undue conflicts arising from their use.

Full text here : http://domainincite.com/docs/TSB-Director-Letter-to-ICANN-CEO-2013-10-11.pdf

Already an output of mature convergence between Internet and Telecommunication ?

Interesting times, although not many all-numeric DN registered today over TEL on first day , which would certainly please ITU as of date ...

Until next steps , for example when some Google or other OTTs put their hands onto services fom phone number registration over dot TEL , or IMEI over dot TEL, for them to explore further initally walled gardens ?

Telecommunication Standardization

Bureau

Geneva,

1

1

October

2013

Ref:

2013

-

10

-

387

Mr Fadi Chehadé

Pr

esident & CEO of ICANN

Email:

fadi.chehade@icann.org

cc.

:

Mr

Sherif

Guinena

ITU

-

T

SG2 Cha

irman

Email:

dr.guinena@ntra.gov.eg

Mr Khashayar Mahdavi

TELNIC CEO

Email:

kmahdavi@telnic.org

Telephone:

+41 22 730 5852

Telefax:

+41 22 730 5853

E

-

mail

:

tsbdir@itu.int

Dear Mr Chehadé,

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) would welcome ICANN’s assistance to clarify

some issues raised by

the TELNIC announcement

1

that users can register digit strings in the

“.TEL” domain that appear to be of similar length and format as international telephone

numbers.

Since ITU first expressed concerns about the TLDs in our letter to ICANN in Nov

ember 2000, we

have recognized that both ICANN and TELNIC made some efforts to restrict all

-

digit strings as

sub

-

names under the .TEL domain, by allowing the sub

-

names only with “text

-

based” or “non

-

numeric” names, in order to avoid conflict with national

or international telephone numbering

plans. In particular, TELNIC’s application for .TEL domain of March 2004 clearly stated that “[t]he

.Tel will not [a]llow numeric

-

only domain to be registered, and therefore will not conflict with

any national or intern

ational telephone numbering plan” (

New sTLD RFP Application, .tel

-

Telnic,

Part B. Application Form

).

In light of this

, ITU

must

express its concern about TELNIC’s recent ann

ouncement launching an

“all numeric .tel domains” service from 15 October 2013

. This raises a number of

policy, legal,

and practical implications

on

the

potential usage of all

-

digit strings, not only under .TEL domain

,

but also under any future telephony

-

r

elated new gTLDs

,

because of the

possibl

e

perceived

mapping of the ITU

-

T E.164 numbering plan into the Domain Name System (DNS), without

appropriate procedures to ensure that rights of assignees of

Recommendation

ITU

-

T E.164

numbers are properly protected.

1

http://www.telnic.org/downloads/LongNumeri

csRelease.pdf

More images now available with Pro Tel

More images now available with Pro Tel

Telnic have just increased the number of images that can be added to a Pro Tel site as follows:-


1. An increase in the number of allowed images ads in the desktop TelProxy from
current:

a. Top – Increases from 2 to 6

b. Right - Increases from 5 to 6

c. Bottom – Increases from 5 to 6

2. An Increase in the maximum dimension on smartphone image ads from the current 300x150px to a more standard 4:3 ratio of 300x225px. This will have no effect on images currently being used as smartphone image ads (unless the actual dimensions are 4:3 in which case they will be displayed in more appropriate dimensions)

Great News.
EJEMPLO http://camisetas.reyes.tel/
Start making your  Image Galleries now!!  I'm testing mine at http://pictures.groups.u3a.lostwithiel.tel/

Mobile-friendly website leader Telnames launches value-added service to help small businesses get listed online

Telnames new local listings service allows customers to “create once and publish everywhere” with free and automatic online directory submission for UK businesses

London, United Kingdom, October 10, 2013. – Telnames (http://www.telnames.com), a leader in self-service mobile-friendly websites for local businesses, today announces an extension to its popular website creation service with the launch of a convenient local search listings management service. The new service addition means that Telnames customers can now benefit from automatic submission of their core business listings details to participating online directories, local search engines and business listings publishers. The service increases visibility and generates sales leads, relevant local searches, and allows prospective customers to easily make contact.
This new additional service is being provided to all Telnames UK business customers free of charge. When businesses sign up for a Telnames .tel mobile website, Telnames will now distribute the business contact information along with their .tel site URL across a network of significant local search publisher partners including Bing, Yahoo!, BT, Scoot, 118118.com, 192.com, Local Mole and many others. This new service means that Telnames customers can avoid the time and hassle involved with making contact with each local directory themselves to get listed and visible in local search. All that is required is to set up an initial Telnames .tel for their business, which only takes minutes. All the relevant data that online directories need is captured during the sign-up process and Telnames then provides this information automatically to members of its partner network of directories and local search engines at no extra charge. The Telnames Partner Network is constantly expanding as more and more partners come on board.
Previously, companies have had to create their own website, optimise it for mobile devices, and then submit it to the directories themselves. Many businesses have found this process time consuming and a hassle so they have simply not bothered with it. Consequently, their businesses are not being fully listed or appear without important website content putting them at a disadvantage in the UK local search web.
Telnames’ Chief Marketing Officer Ian Bowen-Morris comments: “This new additional service is a huge help to our small business customers. When they sign up to Telnames not only do they benefit from having an easy to use single page website designed with mobile users in mind, they also now benefit from inclusion in our new listings management service. The service helps them get visibility and generate sales leads by automatically distributing their core contact information and .tel URL across a range of popular local search sites that publish after verification.” He adds: “Using local directories has always been a key marketing tool for businesses, but what Telnames is delivering is a totally unique package – an effective website presence that displays their business effectively to people searching on all devices at home or on the move as well as visibility across the local search web at no extra cost. The difference is simplicity delivered at superb value for money.”
The Telnames local listings service is included within a customer’s annual Telnames subscription. Businesses don’t need to take any further action to benefit, all that is needed is a .tel name that is well -populated and ready for customers to visit and make contact.
For more information please visit: http://www.telnames.com/telnames-partner-network/.
###
About Telnames: http://www.telnames.tel
Telnames is a leader in self-service mobile-ready website creation. Telnames allows professionals and businesses of all sizes to get online and “go mobile in minutes”.
Press contacts:
Telnames
Nicky Denovan
EvokedSet PR
telnames [at] evokedset [dot] com
Phone: +44 7747 017654

All numeric .tel domains

From 15th October 2013 (3pm BST) you will be able to register a long numeric-only .tel domain.
This includes numeric-only domains with 2 to 63 digits with or without hyphens, except for domains with hyphens in positions three and four (e.g. 12--3.tel).
You will be able to register domain name such as 00442081331319.tel or 0044-20-8133-1319.tel.
Lexsynergy is a .tel accredited registrar. Login or sign up with us to register your .tel domain name.
Contact our brand protection if you have any questions.
 

Mobile website leader Telnames expands offering with launch of local listings management service for small businesses

 Mobile website leader Telnames expands offering with launch of local listings management service for small businesses

London, United Kingdom, October 8th 2013. Telnames (http://www.telnames.com), a leader in self-service mobile-friendly websites for local businesses, today announces an extension to its popular service with the launch of the Telnames Partner Network, delivering automatic submission of core business listing details to participating online directories, local search engines and business listings publishers.

This new local search listings management service is being provided to all Telnames UK business customers free of charge. When businesses sign up for a Telnames .tel mobile website, Telnames will now distribute their business contact information along with their .tel site URL across a network of significant local search publisher partners including Bing, Yahoo!, BT, Scoot, 118118.com, 192.com, Local Mole and many others. Telnames captures all the relevant data from UK businesses that online directories need during the customer sign-up process, and provides this data capsule to Partner Network member directories and local search engines via an automated and regularly updated feed.

The Telnames Partner Network is constantly expanding as more and more partners come on board. Many UK businesses that sign up to Telnames are new to these directory listings or are listed but without a website URL. With the Telnames Partner Network businesses can be assured of maximising their inclusion in local search results with an easy to use single page website designed with mobile users in mind. Previously, companies have had to create their own website, make it mobile-optimised, and then submit it to the directories themselves. Many businesses have found this process time consuming and a hassle so they have not bothered with it resulting in their business not being fully listed or appearing without important website content putting them at a disadvantage in the UK local search web.

Telnames’ Chief Marketing Officer Ian Bowen-Morris comments: “By coupling quick, easy and low-cost mobile-friendly website creation with local search listings management, Telnames is providing a disruptive solution that will boost online directory content and help small businesses generate sales leads.” He adds: “The benefit of Telnames and its Partner Network is two-fold – giving our customers the ability to do something previously expensive and time-consuming at very low cost and very simply and, crucially, offering local directory and search publishers access to many previously unlisted businesses whilst providing a rich source of new local search information that will improve the depth and breadth of search results and content that they serve to the public searching on all devices at home or on the move. It’s a win-win solution and we’re looking forward to welcoming many new publisher partners on-board as we expand our network.”

The Telnames Partner Network local listings service is included within a customer’s annual Telnames low cost subscription. Businesses don’t need to take any further action to benefit, all that is required is a .tel name that is well-populated and ready for customers to visit and make contact.

For more information about becoming a Telnames Partner Network publisher please email us at partners[at]telnames[dot]com or visit: http://www.telnames.com/telnames-partner-network/

Telnic announces all-numeric long domain strings available from 15th October

 by TELwax

This is what we have until now as identified usecases for registration of long numbers , whatever their popularity to be, or any distinctive added value for the money  :
(please add some other realistic ones if there are still some )

So we have :

1. enterprise getting their hot line number to display through TEL more options to call their call center or other number on PABX or access to specific areas for Customer care on the enterprise website

2. not hyperbranded merchants but with nice easy-to-remember long number, willing to drag attention to other digital  assets or incumbant website

3. known (branded) merchants with some existing long number, willing to drag attention to their other main digital assets or their official website, their opening hours and coupons, in case their long number is already registered in many directories and yellow pages and on their fleet of vans.

4. cold call heavy campaigns specialist willing to get traffic back on the long number set for the campaign from lookup search originated by thousands of callees who did no respond but want to know who called

5. merchants and shops , after being offered coupons for a long number TEL , offered by Hibu or other YP companies to attract and lock customers in their online directories though longnumber dot TEL entry gift

6. mobile email anonymizer : register mobile number XXYYZZPPQQRR.TEL  for your number and tel your contacts on your voicemail or auto SMS responder, they might sent you an email at  telco1@ thismobilenumber dot TEL or telco2@ thismobilenumber dot TEL to drop you a message in a convenient manner, or to download you latest vCard

7. As your friends know your mobile number already , or as it is already registred on their mobile phone book, just TEL them on your voice mail or by SMS that now to get more related updated info about you, or your  , just need to search adding dot TEL to your number (to easily retrieve in mobile friendly format from their mobile, your FB account, your email, latest photos or phone number or address of that bar were we gather on Thursdays  nights, phone number of the tennis club where you can meet, etc). You may give them pw to access TELfriends zone attached to your number

8. Protect your expensive latest smartphone by registering its 15 to 16 digits unique ID number so called IMEI number as a TEL, to reduce possibilities for thieves to extract some money with your smartphone reselling on "second" hand markets ,as now its IMEI can be Googled by anyone before buying/reselling it, and encourage being returned back the soonest at contact details shown on the .TEL now attached to your smartphone through IMEI.

9. If you are a TAXI  do register under dot TEL your long phone number with the vanity tag 8294 in it, to get additionnal traffic to your booking website or to get your phone number rank better in wild search from Google for Taxi + location (to be explained how by Registry )

10. Florists, PIZZA, etc might also register their long number with vanity tag for PIZZA or FLOWER that they do rent at high monthly for years now, to build more internet visibility throught this vanity long number they have been paying fr msuch a long time, and get more online and mobile traffic and sale orders.


11. Promotion of so far unbranded proximity services :
BTL basic street marketing and informal street marketing of proximity services by individuals or smal businesses ( painter , gardening, massage, dog groomer, babby sitter etc ) promoting their phone number written on flyers pin on walls or message boards with detachable parts that you tear off for to keep the phone number to call later....

Printing on the flyer also a QRcode which directs to yournumber.tel ( to allow preliminary  discovery) , and printing  onto the detachable part of said papersheet to be picked-up,  the phonenumber .TEL along with the phone number itself, might show more chances to trigger mobile discovery and bookmarking of such easy retrievable proximity service/offer, instead of an anonymous ugly-mobile-phone-number-once-saw-but-could-not-retrieve-nor-check-more-info-or-without-engaging-into-unless-by-anonymous-voice-call-or-not-anonymous-SMS-query.

Therefore providing a basic mechanism from everyday technology (street flyers and papersheet on messages boards !) to increase chances to be get discovered and in touch with anyone  by their prefered mean of communication as :
a. Calling NOW the promoted phone number /service because it matches your urgent need
b. Discovering now or later their phonenumber .tel from their mobile on the go, which dot TEL has all the different contact methods on it plus basic presentation of service, and can be mobile bookmarked by user for more convenient later use.

Telnames Enjoy the Rainbow

Telnames ya trabaja con iOS7

TelnamesCuenta verificada ‏@tel_names

On iOS 7? Our app is now ready for you in the @AppStore - visit http://telnam.es/iphone  and get your thumbs working harder for your business!

A look at .Tel’s 14 year, £25 million journey

Telnic has lost £25 million since it was founded — and much of that was before .tel even launched.
It’s been a long and winding road for many new top level domain applicants. But most of the delays and challenges new TLD applicants have faced pale in comparison to the very long, very expensive road that .tel registry Telnic has traveled.
What is .tel?
.Tel is a unique sponsored top level domain.
A couple things make .tel particularly unique. First, you can’t host a web site on the domain. Your only option is to create a directory style site such as this. Second, the directory data is stored directly within the DNS.
History
Telnic’s genesis was in 1999. Telnic Limited, the company that currently runs .tel, was officially founded the next year.
The company applied for .tel in 2000 but the application was not approved by ICANN. It resubmitted its application in 2004 and finally inked a contract with ICANN in 2006. It then experienced further delays due to concerns about WHOIS policy conflicting with European Union and UK privacy laws.
It wasn’t until December 2008 that the company started its sunrise period. Landrush followed in February 2009 and the domain was finally made available to all registrants in March 2009.
Financials
Although it took a decade before the company was able to launch .tel, it was supported by investors that offered it $35 million in financing (as of 2008).
According to financials filed with the United Kingdom government, the company had cumulative losses of nearly £25M as of June 2012.
In the fiscal year ending June 2008, Telnic had an operating loss of £4.5M. It had already racked up close to £10.5M in losses over its lifetime. The following year, which concluded just a few months after general availability of .tel began, Telnic suffered a £4.1M operating loss. (Because most domain registries recognize revenue over the life of a domain registration, little revenue came in the door that year. It ended the 2009 fiscal year with £1.2M in deferred revenue.)
The company has yet to turn a profit.
Telnic Limited ended June 2012 with £6.0 million in cash. That’s a lot of cash to support a relatively small domain registry, and is likely much more than a number of new top level domain applicants are bringing to the table. Yet that sum was down from £9.7M the previous year. If annual cash outflows continued in 2013 at the same pace as in 2011 and 2012, Telnic’s cash balance will be around £3.0 at the end of this fiscal year (next month).
Telnames Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary that helps promote .tel, had £0.3M in cash at the end of June 2012. The subsidiary owed Telnic Limited £1.4M as of last June.
Take-aways
Will .tel be able to turn the corner? As of the end of 2012 it had 218,825 registered domains according to reports filed with ICANN. That number of domains alone isn’t enough to support the cash outlays it has made over the past couple years.
New TLD applicants can learn some lessons from .tel.
First and foremost, keep it lean until you’re close to revenue.
Second, a unique domain isn’t easy to sell.
.Tel is the most innovative type of domain around. It functions like an online directory page and uniquely stores data directly within the domain name system.
Yet that innovation has created challenges with domain registrars. Because registrants cannot create a web site on the domain names, it reduces the revenue registrars typically make by selling add-on services. Registrars also had to integrate systems for managing the content on .tel domains.
Perhaps for these reasons, Go Daddy doesn’t carry .tel. That’s important given the registrar’s dominance in the industry.
New TLD applicants should take note.

- See more at: http://domainnamewire.com/2013/05/02/a-look-at-tels-14-year-25-million-journey/#sthash.IpR2ZreI.dpuf

A phone number sold for $500k USD

A phone number sold for $500k USD

 by Tely Today at 2:12 pm

Indian Startup Housing.co.in has purchased the national Indian phone number 03-333-333-333 for $500,000 USD.

See:

http://www.domainnamenews.com/domain-sales/housing-com-sold-for-500k-usd

And:

http://www.nextbigwhat.com/housing-domain-297

Most expensive mobile phone number-world record set by Qtel

 by Clever Today at 2:50 pm

Qatar - 666 6666 for about $2,750,000 (May 2006)

China - 8888 8888 for about $480,000 to Sichuan Airlines

http://www.worldrecordacademy.com/business/most_expensive_mobile_phone_number-world_record_set_by_Qtel_80384.htm

Why it pays to get listed online

SEO – or Search Engine Optimisation – is the process of structuring a web page so it is found, read and indexed by online search engines. Why is this important? Imagine what it would be like if no one could easily find their way to your business, or even worse, your telephone number. Most small businesses couldn’t continue for long in such a situation. And the same thing can happen with your mobile website if people can’t easily locate it online.
Obviously, you’re going to let all your existing customers know about your new mobile website address and people who are already familiar with your company should be able to find your site without too much difficulty.
But can you be sure that every potential customer has been reached by your local advertising? What about people who don’t read the local magazines or newspapers where you chose to place advertisements?
That’s where search engines come in. People can just enter a few words into a search engine text box, click a button and voila – there’s a link to your website. This is where SEO comes in.
It’s like a phone book – but bigger
SEO is vital to businesses of any size. Today a staggering 90% of all online traffic to websites is achieved through search engines. These search engines operate much like the phone book used to, but on a much larger scale.
By searching a topic online you can find businesses that offer the services you need. That search could be for a local auto repair shop or for a particular company – for example, a friend may have recommended John’s Service Station, but you don’t have the phone number for that business.
An astounding 250 million online searches are carried out every day in the UK. That makes it vital to ensure you’re one of the businesses that is visible and easy for online searchers to find. In other words, you need to get listed in as many regional and local online directories as possible as local business directories are a great way of letting search engines know that you exist. And there are plenty of online directories out there.
Create once – publish everywhere
The good news is you don’t need to be a technical whizz to get seen and heard online. That’s because a new free of charge service from Telnames does all the hard work for you!
As soon as you sign up for a .tel mobile website, Telnames automatically distributes your business listing and .tel website URL to a whole range of publishing partners – including Bing, Yahoo!, BT, Scott, 118118.com, 192.com, Local Mole and many, many others.
Within days of getting a Telnames .tel, you’ll appear in relevant search engine keyword searches, on online directories and in Bing local search – a key way of generating all-important local sales leads and instantly boosting your search ranking on all search engines.
All you have to do is make sure your .tel name is well populated and ready for customers to visit and make contact.

The Flying Chef

Customer Case Study: The Flying Chef

Street food business gets noticed with Telnames
The British street food movement is gaining momentum with some real food heroes serving up delicious high quality grub at affordable prices.
The Flying Chef is one such company. This high quality mobile catering venture makes its own sausages from local raised pork, served up with freshly baked bread for local suppliers plus a choice of delicious toppings, including their infamous homemade hot sweet chilli relish, and side orders.
Founded by Jonathan Smith and Christine McClellan in 1992, the Flying Chef started out as a single motorbike and sidecar stall. Today, they operate four mobile stalls – all instantly recognisable with their signature black and maroon canopies.
Selected by Richard Johnson, food journalist at the Guardian and founder of the British Street Food Awards, as one of the top 250 British street food vendors in the UK, the Flying Chef plies its trade at venues and locations across East Anglia – and beyond.
.Tel.us: What do you do?
“We started the street food revolution in the UK,” says Christine McClellan. “Jonathan designed and built our very first motorbike and side car stall – and the rest, as they say, is history.”
With its emphasis on high quality and fresh ingredients, the Flying Chef has built up a loyal following of regulars. Its stalls appear at weekly trading sites in towns, as well as local events like antique markets, food festivals and Christmas markets. Its vintage Russian Dnepr motorbike stall is regularly in demand for special events like weddings, corporate events and private parties.
“The food served up by street traders in Britain has won widespread recognition. There’s a buzz around ‘real food for real people’ at the moment and the BBC’s annual Food and Farming Awards now feature a Best Street Food or Takeaway category,” continues Christine.
“The trick is getting the word out there to our fans and foodie followers,” says Christine. “Like many other street vendors, we’re not content to stand around and hope people can find us. Instead we’re using social media to bring in the crowds, promote our latest flavour offerings and let followers know where and when we’re appearing next.”
.Tel us: Why do you use a Telnames .tel?
“We’ve worked hard to build our profile and reputation on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter – which is how we came to the attention of the British Street Food organisation,” explains Christine.
“People like Sheila Dillon of the BBC’s Food Programme follow us and we’ve been selected for the British Street Food App that sets out to showcase the best street food in Britain. Downloaded to your mobile phone, you can use the app to see who’s trading near you – you can even photograph and review the food you try on stalls and tell others about great foodie finds.”
Building a street food community and a following is a great way for the Flying Chef to get the attention – and customers – it deserves. Which is why setting up theflyingchef.tel seemed like such a logical next step.
“We wanted a mobile-friendly website and a Telnames .tel made perfect sense,” Christine continues. “Street food is all about people on the move – and our .tel makes it easy for people to find us on their smartphone when they’re out and about, clicking on our social media links to get the latest hot updates.”
“It’s made it possible for us to create a ‘virtual circle’ that brings everything together, showcasing perfectly what we’re all about.”
.Tel us: How has your Telnames .tel helped your business?
In the last few years the Flying Chef has been trying out new venues to expand and grow its business.
“We’ve shifted our emphasis to specialist venues like food festivals, and we’ve found that our new .tel is a handy ‘one stop shop’ for organisers to check out our credentials, explore our social media feeds, and make a decision about whether to invite us to join their event,” says Christine.
The Flying Chef team is also building a regular pitch at local pubs like the Ox and Plough, where they appear by invite.
“The Ox and Plough runs a Two Wheel Tuesday event for anyone with a Harley, sports bike, scooter, chopper or trike – or even a sports or classic car,” continues Christine. “Our motorbike stall fits right in with the theme and spirit of the event which draws in fans of everything two wheeled who enjoy getting together. We use our .tel to promote our appearances and offer money-off coupons.”
Creating a mobile-friendly website has made a world of difference to the Flying Chef when it comes to getting noticed by new customers and local contacts direct from their phones.
“It’s really hard to put a value on what a .tel has done for our business. We love it so much we’ve recommended Telnames to friends and colleagues with their own local business ventures.”
Christine McClellan, Partner, The Flying Chef

If a caller dials +868686868686, the following could happen:

 If a caller dials +868686868686, the following could happen:

• While dialing +868686868686, your smartphone tells you whom you are calling (with the information from 868686868686.tel).
• While the call gets connected, the .tel website 868686868686.tel of the callee could get opened simultaneously.
• If the number +868686868686 is busy, alternative numbers from the .tel could be offered.
• Specific content from the .tel could be pushed to the caller's smartphone display.
• A voice mail goes into the cloud (as redirected by the .tel) instead to the hardware of the callee at home.
• The call history could go into the cloud, too.
• The smartphone could offer to send an e-mail to the owner of 868686868686.tel instead of dialing +868686868686.
• TelFriends.tel can ask the caller if he wants to connect his own .tel with the .tel of the callee.
• Third-party providers could provide additional services based on your calls.
• Based on the information on a .tel, the caller can get much additional information (e.g. customized advertising, coupons, opening hours, routing information).

 Coupons require location sensitivity provided by geo location.

Name calling is just a joke, which might had prospective sense 8 to 7 years ago.
6B+ mobile phones + phone directory Embedded into each mobile phones, and embarked vocal recognition just killed this idea which emerged at times there where no mobile internet clear vision, neither friendly GUIs on smartphones to manage embarked phone contacts, nor enough processing power to support voice recognition.

So just put aside that LochNessMonsterKillerApp quest concerning Joe public, as there are so many ways of offering better lookalike usage with existing free or paid products or Tools.

And large stake holders were polite in their answers to name calling new entrants :
"show me your millions of customers/users with your TEL (or your CallName) and then I will adapt my business for win/win (alt. to take advantage or yours). But in the meantime, just continue to use our traditionnal (regularly upgraded) numbering plans for calling" ,
and honestly the 200K+ "TEL owners" (counting dormants porfolioed ones several times) just show they could have been less less polite in their answer.

CallName which was mentionned above , although FREE, based on App download, and supposedly somehow viral once you enter your friends directory into the app, has only...... 234 likes on Facebook !!!!

Therefore do not loose time on this side of the moon, whom finger it is showing the moon.

On the other side of this moon, there are already in the sky new galaxies with Facebook already with 1B+ users and testing social calling, Skype with 200M+ is a reality ,not to mention Viber and others, or captive MM+ of Facetime users or BBM users, .... or billions of incumbant mobile users.

So if one of these stake holder is going to go extend "Name calling" to a large scale from what they already offer commercially or test now, it might look like .... social calling and social calling plans (offensive or defensive).
So IMHO , it is dangerous to rely on exploring tiny paths when there are already growing highways direct to your intended destination with growing trafic on them...better try to build the right car to speed correctly on these highways !!!

So either one finds some smart usage delivering added value (confort, ease of use, cheaper call, voice messaging, etc BUT adding value) a very simple and intuitive way using capabilities of TELs ( so not an enthusiastic geek vision, but a base dow to earth short sighted vision of millions of Joe public), that self propagates and build  such standalone MM+ users base, .....
or more reasonnably ... try to use already existing MM+ users bases from Fbook, BBRY, 2.75GSM etc,  to leverage introduction of a new service or a new application complementing what does exist already and based on TEL DNS.
Otherwise, change your destination/plan .

Of course on enterprise segment, one could still dream about name calling, we should say brand calling (small business are unknown names so you cannot go name calling, you have to go for search or for directory , so easier move for Joe public whatever results).
Brand calling does exist already the traditionnal way (1-800-vanity ) ... and new comers would have to speak fluently marketing & branding and afford marketing campaign costs to grab some market shares whatever the underlying technology.

And eventhough, traditionnal Brand calling can be soon be bypassed by solutions with higher added value delivered on final goal, which is mobile local shop discovery ( as a distributor of some famous brand)  and mobile purchasing/booking/prepaying with coupons or mobile money IN-store, the next battle field after the now mature business model of online e-commerce .
That is why Paypal, Fbook, Google, Apple & others are all pushing their last meter solutions these weeks/months, fishing with beacons for IRL local shops discovery from mobile, to try to turn the table upside down and cash in over walled gardens conscientiously tidied by banks and credit card operators.
In this picture Telname pre packed TEL as well as bare TELs as a cheap/easy/fast central point of contact/discovery for local shops, can still play a role towards this solutions (to be defined) because of the initial positionning at Icann level of TEL as a central point of contact, whatever fuzzy pictures comes out to mind through the TEL tracks record so far.
Of course you can do that with a dot com.
But Joe public has already tried to connect to a dot com website from his mobile or to search from Google on his mobile and he is not getting what he is looking for,  at this time.
And for the apps, Joe public is still not fully interested nor in fact understand about mobile apps either , needing too much trouble and education/marketing upon his side and are at first sight too complex regarding what he feels are only basic questions/needs.

So why not TEL ? it is easier to Paypal Fbook Google or any other OTT, based on the size of their users, to ask (or even request ) free of charge to TELnic to do some move to retrofit TELs with some additionnal features or appropriate pitch positionning .
It might be possible for them to discuss the same way with dotMobi, but might be more costly and less pure vanilla picture compared to initial pitch delivered by dot mobi at Icann and engraved into hundreds of DN registrars .

So inventing or encouraging new usage of TEL sticking to Joe public mobile or Joe public social daily use and needs simplifying his digital life in his respective communities or circles, would bring more benefits than dreaming of bare name calling, ALTHOUGH LONG NUMBERS are available to register soon from TELnic, which is supposedly the purpose of this collection of threads about long number registering (but never  said "longPHONEnumber TEL registering only ) .

Nuevo escenario con 9 digitos en los .tel

Telnic anuncia la disponibilidad de cadenas de dominio totalmente numéricas

COMUNICADO: Telnic anuncia la disponibilidad de cadenas de dominio totalmente numéricas

LONDRES, September 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

    -- Telnic anuncia la disponibilidad de cadenas de dominio largas totalmente numéricas a partir del 15 de octubre  

    Telnic Limited (http://telnic.org), el operador de registro para el domingo de alto nivel .tel (TLD) centrado en las comunicaciones, ha anunciado hoy que las cadenas de dominio .tel totalmente numéricas de ocho dígitos o más largas estarán disponibles en octubre. 
    Los registradores que desean registrar cadenas como 00442074676450.tel o 0207-467-6450.tel podrán hacerlo a través de los registradores acreditados ICANN desde las 15:00 GMT del martes 15 de octubre. 
    "Los registradores tienen una mayor opción de registrar un nombre .tel o un nombre .tel bajo el que publicar todo tipo de información de contacto online", dijo Khashayar Mahdavi, consejero delegado de Telnic. "Esto supone que si el cliente conoce el nombre de la empresa o el número de teléfono de una empresa, puede ser localizado online rápidamente de un modo móvil". 
    Los registros se efectuarán en una base del "primero en llegar, primero en ser atendido". El precio minorista se fija por los registradores acreditados ICANN y sus revendedores, pero se prevé que esté ampliamente en línea con el precio de .tel existente. 
    Una lista de los actuales registradores acreditados ICANN que ofrecen registros de dominio .tel puede encontrarse en http://telnic.org/get-started-buy.html. 
    Para más información sobre .tel y Telnic, visite http://telnic.tel. 
    Nota a los redactores: 
    Acerca de Telnic Limited - vea http://telnic.tel 
    Contacto principal - Justin Hayward, director de comunicaciones, Telnic Limited: http://justin.tel

all-numeric .tel domain strings of eight digits or longer will be made available in October 2013.

Telnic Limited, the Registry Operator for the communications-focused .tel top level domain (TLD), today announced that all-numeric .tel domain strings of eight digits or longer will be made available in October 2013.

Registrants wishing to register strings such as 00442074676450.tel or 0207-467-6450.tel will be able to do so through ICANN-accredited Registrars from 15:00 GMT on Tuesday 15th October 2013.

"Registrants now have an increased choice of registering a .tel name or a .tel number under which they can publish all types of contact information online," said Khashayar Mahdavi, CEO of Telnic. "This means that if the customer knows either the business name or telephone number for a business, it can be reached online quickly in a mobile-friendly way."

Registrations will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Retail pricing is set by ICANN-accredited Registrars and their resellers, but it is anticipated to be broadly in line with existing .tel pricing.

A list of current ICANN-accredited Registrars that offer .tel domain registrations can be found at http://telnic.org/get-started-buy.html

Go Daddy objects to numeric .tel domains

Go Daddy has objected to Telnic’s plan to start selling numeric .tel domain names, saying that it, among other things, “smells a lot like gaming”.

Telnic applied to ICANN last month to revise its registry contract to enable it to start selling domains containing numbers and hyphens.

I speculated a month ago that the International Telecommunications Union might object to the proposal, for reasons I explained in some depth.

(Briefly, Telnic won the .tel sponsored TLD partly because it promised for years not to enable domains that could look like phone numbers.)

But the ITU had nothing to say, at least in terms of the ICANN public comment period.

Go Daddy’s Tim Ruiz did object last Saturday on related grounds, telling ICANN:

We believe that this request cannot be granted without requiring the rebidding of the .tel sTLD itself. It is unfair to other applicants and potential applicants to allow an sTLD to change its purpose after the fact.

…

Since community, purpose, and use were such important aspects of the sTLD allocation decisions it seems inappropriate, fundamentally unfair, and even smells a lot like gaming, to allow an sTLD to change those aspects without an opportunity for others to bid competitively.

In response to Ruiz’s letter, Telnic chief executive Khashayar Mahdavi wrote to ICANN:

The restriction on all-numeric strings has nothing to do with the nature of .tel and was instead a measure put in place to address initial concerns about potential conflicts with ENUM… We believe time and the growing understanding of the .tel technology have proven such a conflict does not exist.

ENUM is a protocol for addressing voice services using the DNS. It uses dots between each individual digit of a phone number, which would be specifically disallowed under Telnic’s plans.

Mahdavi also expressed confusion as to why Go Daddy bothered to object – it is not currently a registry, it does not carry .tel domains and it will presumably not be affected by the relaxation of the .tel rules.

Is it possible the registrar is taking a principled stance?

Ruiz also noted:

We believe that certain other recent requests under the guise of the RSEP [Registry Services Evaluation Process] by sTLDs were also likely inappropriate for similar reasons

He didn’t specify which sTLDs he was talking about. Without wishing to put words into his mouth, I can think of at least one that fits the description.

The Telnic proposal has already passed ICANN’s staff evaluation. I expect it could come before the board next month at its Cartagena meeting.

In separate news, Telnic’s less-controversial proposal to start selling one and two-character .tel domains has now passed its ICANN evaluation.

http://domainincite.com/2686-go-daddy-objects-to-numeric-tel-domains

Will ITU object to phone number .tel domains?

Should Telnic be allowed to let people register their phone numbers as .tel domain names?

That’s the question ICANN is currently posing to the internet-using public, after it determined that allowing numeric-only .tel domains does not pose a security and stability threat.

If you can register a phone number in almost every other gTLD (except VeriSign’s .name), then why not in .tel? On the face of it, it’s a no-brainer.

But Telnic’s request represents a huge U-turn, reversing a position it has held for 10 years, that runs the risk of drawing the attention of the International Telecommunications Union.

Telnic originally applied for .tel during ICANN’s very first new gTLD round, back in 2000.

The third-party evaluator ICANN hired to review the new TLD applications clearly assumed that .tel domains would be mainly text-based, noting that Telnic, unlike other .tel bids:

does not make use of phone numbers in the sub-domain name, but instead uses names to designate the intended destination of VoIP calls… the Telnic application appears to have the least impact on PSTN numbering.

The report added, parenthetically: “It should be noted that Telnic’s application does not explicitly renounce the future use of numbers”.

That all changed after November 2000, when the ITU wrote to ICANN to express concerns about the four proposed telephony-related TLDs:

it is the view of ITU that it would be premature for ICANN to grant any E.164-related TLD application as this may jeopardize these cooperative activities or prejudice future DNS IP Telephony addressing requirements.

E.164 is the international telephone numbering plan, which the ITU oversees. It also forms the basis of the ENUM protocol, which stores phone numbers in the DNS under e164.arpa.

ICANN’s board of directors used the ITU letter to reject all four telephony TLDs, which irked Telnic. The would-be registry filed a Reconsideration Request in an attempt to get the decision reversed.

In it, Telnic attempted to persuade ICANN that the ITU had nothing to worry about with its “text-based” and strictly non-numeric TLD. The company wrote (my emphasis):

* All-digit strings will be permanently embargoed.

* Broad terms and conditions and safeguards will be implemented covering any abuses that could possibly lead to any PSTN confusion, conflict or similarity.

* Measured use of numbers might be permissible where there is no direct, marginal, implied or similar confusions/conflicts with PSTN codes or numbers – and where digits form an incidental part of a text string (e.g. johnsmith11.tel).

ICANN’s reconsideration committee denied the request.

In 2004, when ICANN’s sponsored TLD round opened up, Telnic applied for .tel again. This time, it was careful to avoid upsetting the ITU from the very outset.

Indeed, the second paragraph of its application stated clearly:

Digits are to be restricted to maintain the integrity of a letters/words based top-level domain and to avoid interference with established or future national and international telephone numbering plans.

The application referred to the namespace as “text-based” throughout, and even used the need for policies regulating the use of digits to justify the sponsoring organization it intended to create.

The application stated:

The .Tel will not:

…

Allow numeric-only domains to be registered, and therefore will not conflict with any national or international telephone numbering plan.

It also said:

Domain name strings containing only digits with or without a dash (e.g. 08001234567, 0-800-1234567) will be restricted and reserved to maintain the integrity as a letters/words based top-level domain

Despite these assurances, it was obvious that the ITU’s concerns about numeric .tel domains continued to bother ICANN right up until it finally approved .tel in 2006.

During the board meeting at which Telnic’s contract was approved, director Raimundo Beca pressed for the inclusion of language that addressed the constraints on numeric domains and chair Vint Cerf asked general counsel John Jeffrey to amend the resolution accordingly.

While that amendment appears to have never been made, it was clearly envisaged at the moment of the board vote that .tel was to steer clear of numeric-only domains.

Telnic’s contract now specifically excludes such registrations.

Given all this history, one might now argue that Telnic’s request to lift these restrictions is kind of a Big Deal.

A Telnic spokesperson tells me that, among other things, the current restrictions unfairly exclude companies that brand themselves with their phone numbers, such as 118-118 in the UK.

He added that Telnic request has been made now in part because VeriSign has requested the lifting of similar restrictions in .name, which ICANN has also concluded is not a stability problem.

However, as far as I can tell .name was not subject to the same kinds of ITU-related concerns as .tel when it was approved in 2000.

Telnic proposes one safeguard against conflict with E.164, in that it will not allow the registration of single-digit domains, reducing the potential for confusion with ENUM strings, which separate each digit with a dot.

If the ITU does rear its head in response to the current .tel public comment period, it will come at a awkward time, politically. Some ITU members have said recently they want the ITU to form a committee that would have veto power over ICANN’s decisions.

But Telnic says, in its proposal, that it does not know of anybody who is likely to object to its request.

Perhaps it is correct.