Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Industry group seeks mobile top-level domain

From: Marcelrf <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 10 Mar 2004 17:42:47 -0500

Industry group seeks mobile top-level domain
Nine mobile vendors form venture aimed at simplifying subscribers'
Internet experience

By Scarlet Pruitt, IDG News Service March 10, 2004

Promising to spur the development and reliability of mobile services and
technology, a group of nine mobile industry players said Wednesday that
they are applying for a mobile top-level domain (TLD) that would operate
under a joint venture registry.

The group said that the initiative is aimed at simplifying mobile
subscribers' Internet experience and streamlining the deployment of new
sites aimed at mobile usage. The group is made up of Microsoft Corp.;
Nokia Corp.; Vodafone Group PLC; Hewlett-Packard Co.; Hutchinson 3G UK
Ltd.; Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Sun Microsystems Inc., Orange SA and
the GSM Association.

The group plans to hand its TLD application to the Internet Corporation
for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) on March 15 and expects a
decision within three to six months. If all goes well, the registry will
be operating by the second-half of 2005, Brian Arbogast, Microsoft's
corporate vice president of the MSN Communications Platform, said during
a conference call Wednesday.

An ICANN representative could not comment on the likely outcome of the
application Wednesday. However, Arbogast said the group "remains very
confident" about the decision.

While nine players have already thrown their weight behind the proposed
joint venture, Arbogast said that they expect several more companies to
get involved.

"We expect and encourage different members," Arbogast said.
The creation of a mobile TLD would offer mobile customers more
reliability when accessing content from their mobile devices,
accelerating the adoption of mobile services, Arbogast said.

"Today customers don't have a dependable experience," he said. The TLD
will also offer a new business opportunity to network operators and
content creators, he added.

In that vein, Arbogast said he expected the move to open access to
mobile content and to peer-to-peer content.
The joint venture members said that they were dedicated to building a
system that could support the growth of Internet-enabled mobile devices
accessing new content.

The proposed mobile TLD registry would be based in Ireland, with some
outsourcing of infrastructure functions, Nokia's Senior Vice President
and Chief Technology Officer Pertti Korhonen said during the call.

Korhonen estimated that from the outset the system would have to be able
to support over a billion mobile devices connected to the Internet.

"We need high reliability on the back end with the ability to scale (to
support) new technologies," he said.
In addition to providing mobile TLDs for operators and content
providers, the group also plans to offer second-level and third-level
mobile domains, Korhonen said. A second-level domain would be for a
corporation or trademark, such as IDG@mTLD, for example, while a
third-level domain would offer an address to an individual, such as
Ernesto@mTLD.
While plans for the TLD were grand, Korhonen said that the registry
itself would be lean, with a staff of 20 to 25. A policy advisory group
is being planned, however, and Korhonen said that issues such as open
standards for interoperability and guidelines for mobile content are
already on the table.

More information on the initiative is available at
http://www.mtldinfo.com.

http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/03/10/HNmobiledomain_1.html

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