Re: [ga] ".tel" proposed gTLD, and the like

[Sandy Harris <sandy@storm.ca>]

Jefsey Morfin wrote:
 
> I wander about the proposed gTLD ".tel" (there might be others,
> now or in the future in the same case). IMHO such propositions
> concerning a telecom or an internet service should be prevented
> from being allocated a TLD (and the DNSO should warn the BoD
> against such an error) because:
> 
> -  telephone is not a new way of organizing web sites,

Nor is DNS "a way of organising web sites". In one sense it is much
less than that, just a way of mapping names to addresses. In
another, it is much more since it names many things other than web
sites.

> -  but a new way to interface with existing site owners.

More a net interface to another system -- phone numbers and
phone directories -- more-or-less orthogonal to network names.
 
> I certainly accept the ".tel" as the ".air" or the ".org" TLDs
> for Telcos as ".air" would be for air transportation and ".org"
> for NGOs., example http://att.tel for AT&T http://twa.air for TWA
> as http://www.icann.org is for ICANN.

That would make sense, although it isn't clear to me that it
would be of great value.

If you're going to do TLDs by industry, then are .air and .car
second levels under .transport or independent TLDs? In either
case, is there a .bike or .mule?

Or should we just have a .ind for all industries? Let only
major (definition?) industry associations have names in it.
They can hand out gm.car.ind, att.tel.ind etc. if they choose.

How is that better than just letting the associations live in
.org and point to their members at gm.com and att.com? It isn't
in any way I can see.  
 
> But the telephone link to the IBM call center should be
> something like tel://ibm.com , and I should be sometime
> able to call the ICANN with the tel://icann.org URL.

In that context, phone:// is clearer than tel://
This would, I think, require protocol changes. The browser would
have to understand "phone:" (change to HTTP or HTML) and be able
to look up a phone number for "ibm.com" (new type of DNS record?
new convention for use of TXT records? a separate directory?).

I therefore think such links are neither a good idea nor at all
likely to be implemented.

It might be feasible to allow links along the lines of
phone://44-123-45678 where the "44" is a UK country code.
Then the www.example.uk could provide links to one number
for sales, another for tech support, ...  My guess would
be that this would be quite difficult because of all the
variation in phone systems round the world.

In any case, that is outside our scope.
  
> An address like http://12101234567.tel would only mean the
> web site of the owner of the (210) 123 45 67 telephone number.
> As some have already theirs under ".com" or others ccTLDs.

This strikes me as madness. If I know his phone number, likely
I know his name. If not, some sort of directory may be in order
but not such a lunatic extension to the domain name system.
 
> Any other way restricting the telephone numbering plan
> to a TLD (like xxxx.e164.arpa) is protecting an old approach (E-164
> telephone plan) in a new system (internet).

This sounds plausible. I'm not at all sure it is needed.
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