It's only taken six years to happen, but ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has finally OK'd the .Tel domain name -- a domain that will basically serve as the approved address format for Internet-based phone numbers.
ICANN has picked Telnic, a UK-based group, to administer the addresses, which would work like this:
If you pointed your browser to a Web address that ends in .tel -- robinsconsult.tel, for example -- you would automatically activate an Internet phone call to my company, Robins Consulting Group.
According to Telnic, "A .tel address would also allow someone to "publish and control, in real time, how they can be reached."
"The days of needing to remember several telephone numbers, numerous VOIP [voice over IP] or instant message identities and other points of contact for our social and professional networks are over," Khashayar Mahdavi, Telnic's chief executive officer, is quoted as saying in their press release announcing the ICANN approval.
No date has been set on the actual activation of the domain, however.
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