.tel domain name $1

The internet department now considers the .tel domain name. More and more people are beginning to use the internet as a means to communicate. People are beginning to abandon the "out-dated" technology of cell and work phone numbers. Some people even have Web pages -- through their employer or Internet service provider, or perhaps a profile or two on MySpace.

To help people manage all their contact information online, the internet 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 start a call or send a text message directly from the site. Businesses could use a ".tel" site to determine customers' locations and route them automatically to the correct call center.

The domain ".tel" may also serve 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 like phone listings, which may be old or incomplete, particularly if an entire household is listed under one name. 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.