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October 24, 2008

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At the beginning of December, the sunrise period for .tel names starts. By this initiative, Telnic (the .tel registry) wants to become a decent competitor for the White and Yellow pages. But what’s a .tel name really about and what are the advantages?

For starters, a .tel name offers everybody the possibility to centralize his or her contact information. Once you’ve registred a .tel name, you can bring together your address, phone-, fax- and mobile phone number, your e-mail,… and make them available in an efficient way. By using your .tel name, people who want to find you (customers, suppliers,…) can save lots of time.

What you should know is that your .tel name isn’t associated with a specific website. How does it work? You register a .tel name and put your contact information under this name. People who want to know your contact information, can consult them through their iPhone or Blackberry. They can see all the information they need and by a simple push on the button they can contact you.

You can easily complete, update or delete your contact information yourself. Your .tel name doesn’t have to be managed by an IT department. But what about your privacy? Telnic has thought about this. They offer you the possibility to work with access levels. So you decide who sees which information. If you only want your customers and suppliers to see your company information and your friends to see your private phone number, this isn’t a problem.

Telnic also thinks that the registration of certain .tel names could become a battle. And they might be right. Just imagine you would be able to register hotels.tel. Probably a lot of hotels would like everybody to be able to consult their contact information under your .tel name.

Some firms have already found extra services for .tel names. For instance Digitrad, a Paris-based company wants to offer a multimedia phone number. Through this number the phone will ring wherever you happen to be (your desk, your mobile,…)

You can sign in for pre-registrations of .tel names at bNamed. Through this link, you’ll also find the prices for the pre-registrations of .tel names.

Business week also covers .tel names this week.