Companies looking to protect their trademark can now secure a .tel domain ahead of the mainstream launch of the new top level domain.

The first wave of sales of .tel domain names began at 3pm today, kick-starting mainstream interest in the new top level domain (TLD) and information sharing platform.

Right now, businesses with valid trademarks can claim the corresponding .tel domain name for a fee – a process known as the Sunrise period. This allows companies such as McDonalds or eBay, for example, to purchase .tel domains that relate to their brand names and registered trademarks without having to contend with cyber squatters and profiteers.

From 3 February 2009, anyone will be able to buy a .tel for a premium price. Known as the Landrush phase, this will allow people to register names and generic terms, for example, rickshaw.tel or hotdog.tel. The Landrush phase will be followed by general availability at an everyday price from 24 March 2009.

itpro.com

Prices have come down drastically on the .tel domains. You can get them for $10.99 at Dynadot which is the best price I have seen. Anybody else got a better price?

Honestly I don't see any value at all in these new domain extentions. Next year there are going to be literally hundreds of new extensions on the market. The only ones which will hold their values are: .com, .org, .net, .co.uk, .de, .fr, .ru, .ca, and a few other country codes

One benefit that my friend mentioned and uses is that he associates his .tel domain to his telephone number. Since he's a "perpetual" traveller, he has all his international numbers on his .tel website.

He also mentioned that on newer phones, you can dial the domain.tel and it will connect your call to where the person is anywhere in the world.

Those I`ve seen are generally around the $12.99 price.

Where does the .tel extension come from?

This post has been edited by Atreidex: Apr 18 2009, 06:37 AM

It's called tel because it's supposed to be like a global White Pages. It has nothing to do with the telephone industry.

Basically, you can register a tel domain name and set it up with the registry and when people go to that domain, they see mostly links, phone numbers, addresses, or other contact information for you. You can make any fields public or private. If a field is private, then visitors can request access to the private fields.

For example, you can display your phone numbers, skype information, email address, links to your social media websites like your twitter page or your myspace or facebook page or your blogs. When people click on your skype account name, for example, they would be connected to you via skype. If you travel a lot, you can tell people where you are at the moment and how to contact you. You can have links to your business website(s) or whatever else you want.

It is not like other domain names in many ways. It cannot be simply forwarded to another web location or cannot be hosted and build whatever you want on it. The website is stored in the registry itself.