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New Net Battle Over ".mobile" Looming 233

John IPsen writes "A group of big companies, including Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft, today applied to ICANN to have a new ".mobile" domain in the next round of new Internet domains for connecting phones and PDAs to the Internet. But while they say they aren't aware of any competition, it seems that some others have been preparing their bids for a lot longer and a big battle may be brewing. More here."
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New Net Battle Over ".mobile" Looming

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  • by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @03:57PM (#8524852) Homepage Journal

    From:.mobile ERROR:"550 Go away, spammer."
    Right where it belongs, along with .biz and .info
  • by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @03:58PM (#8524858)
    Where's .biloxi and .tuscaloosa ?
  • .mob? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Tyler Eaves ( 344284 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @03:58PM (#8524859)
    Why not continure the 'tradition' of 3 letter TLDS and use .mob? It's even descriptive of the companies trying to push this through...
    • Re:.mob? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lawbeefaroni ( 246892 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:00PM (#8524886) Homepage
      And it's a hell of a lot easier to type in on cell phones.

      • Re:.mob? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dietz ( 553239 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:34PM (#8525322)
        I think the point of this is that you wouldn't NEED to type the TLD. They want to make this TLD the default search domain on mobile devices.

        So, for example, http://google/ would take you to google.mobile on a cell phone.

        That's the impression I got from the article, anyway:
        The application could turn out to be more politically charged than its proponents hope, because the mobile domain is not just another Internet domain like .biz, extending the address space. Instead, it is a new text-based user friendly addressing scheme for phones and mobile devices, which could replace and extend the power of phone numbers - just as the current Internet domain scheme did for numeric Internet addresses, replacing 207.46.245.214 with "microsoft.com", for instance.
        • Re:.mob? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Mondrames ( 242558 )
          That would be great, but I think the article actually implied that instead of sending a text message to 55512345678 you could just as easily send it to dietz.mobile and it would get to your phone. Not that it's faster to type, but it would be easier to remember.
      • Re:.mob? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by dasmegabyte ( 267018 )
        You said it. To type out ".mobile" on my cell phone takes 16 keystrokes. And that's without the ever present fat fingering! You're look at 10-20 seconds just to tap out that extension.

        Ideally, mobile phones should get special dispensations -- numeric-only URLs, no document extensions, etc. I've written a few WML apps, and the biggest challenge was making them easy to get to via the keypad. Something like tiny url -- concentrating on numbers and the letters a,d,g,j,m,p,t and w -- worked best.
        • Google's WAP [google.com] (link goes to Google's WAP site; use a WAP [w3schools.com] emulator for true cell phone "feel & touch", like this one [thewap.at]) has already implemented numeric-only search functionality, named "Google Num".

          And, as a matter of fact, it does work quite nicely. It's basically a T9-to-Google interface - instead of having to hit a key multiple times to select one of the specific characters that a key maps to (ie. hit the "7" key 4x to get a "s") you just need to hit it once, and let the algorithm figure what you meant)

    • Do you really want guys in black suits knocking on your door because you picked the wrong .mob territory?
    • Re:.mob? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DjMd ( 541962 )
      or the even more obvious .cell ?
      Or are they saving that for when single cells get their own IPv4 er v6..... v128?
      • Re:.mob? (Score:3, Informative)

        by iso ( 87585 )
        Perhaps because the majority of the English-speaking world calls them "mobile" phones? Only Americans call them "cell" phones.
        • What about non-english speakers who use neither "cell" nor "mobile"?

          ( ... you insensitive clods!)
        • The companies in the US are moving hard towards a generic "wireless", as in "wireless services."

          Which makes me immediately think of my (accursed) 2.4GHz cordless house phone or my (interfered with) WiFi.

          As a motorcycling fending off idiots every commute:
          Perhaps it would better be .distractedDriver
          .annoyingYuppie?

          Though I DO like .5 (or .6 - see below) :)

          IPv6

          They can have a TLD, but it must not be populated with ANYTHING in the IPv4 name space. eg:
          You must be THIS ----------------->

    • Re:.mob? (Score:4, Funny)

      by System.out.println() ( 755533 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:09PM (#8525017) Journal
      If they did that flash.mob would be one of the first domains snatched up.
    • Re:.mob? (Score:4, Funny)

      by iminplaya ( 723125 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:13PM (#8525073) Journal
      Yes. While setting my spam filters I would go to .mob rules?

    • People are already racing to register goatse.mob.
  • too long a name (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mgs1000 ( 583340 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @03:59PM (#8524866) Journal
    Am I the only one who thinks a 5-digit TLD is just too long to type in using the keypad on a cell phone?
  • me first? (Score:5, Funny)

    by bbsguru ( 586178 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @03:59PM (#8524875) Homepage Journal
    This is too much fun! Can I be the first to register olds.mobile? hupp.mobile? auto.mobile? alexander.calder.mobile.hangs.in.a.museum?? semi.mobile? quasi.mobile.rang.notre.dame.bells? Can the .matic domain be far behind?
  • Uhm... no... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:00PM (#8524885)
    Mobile devices don't need their own TLD for DNS names. Just what's wrong with with using the existing ones?
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:00PM (#8524891)
    Personally I dont think there needs to be another .anything right now. what good is .mobile gonna do? rather than be the next haven for spammers, stupid vhosts, and other useless junk..
  • I'd say .mob would be better but this guy [synergizedsolutions.com] might already own it.
  • by michael path ( 94586 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:03PM (#8524935) Homepage Journal
    oh yeah. the last thing i need to address from my phone is a longer TLD.

    rcpt to: path@sprint.mbolie^H^H^H^H^H
    501 5.5.6 You're an IDIOT
    CRAP!
    501 5.5.7 That doesn't work either.
    rcpt to: path@sprunt.mlobie^H^H^H^H
    501 5.5.8 Nope. Not even close.
    rcpt to: path@sprint.mobil
    501 5.5.9Try Exxon

    ad nauseum.
  • Verbosity? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) * on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:04PM (#8524946)
    Is there something wrong with .mbl? I don't see why we have to spell the whole thing out: the existing TLDs are all blissfully concise.

    Long TLDS distract from the domain names themselves: which looks better, www.slashdot.org or www.slashdot.nonprofitorganization?
  • Missing link... (Score:3, Informative)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) * on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:04PM (#8524950)
    Anybody notice that the "More here..." article is the same URL as the other link in the summary?
  • Ya know... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by suso ( 153703 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:04PM (#8524955) Journal
    They don't need a .mobile domain to connect their phones and PDAs to the internet, don't they? ;-)

    Like it will matter, people will just continue to find unique domains and register stuff like

    myphonenumber.com
    myphonenumber.net
    myphonenum ber.org
    myphonenumber.biz
    myphonenumber.cc
    myph onenumber.tv
    myphonenumber.de
    myphonenumber.mx

    Because, what if, forbid, someone just randomly types in myphonenumber.mx, but doesn't try myphonenumber.com. Oh no!

  • by Ich Bin Zu ( 737102 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:06PM (#8524969) Homepage
    I don't know if it is a good idea. Our company website has the .ws domain. When I give people our website address, they always ask: dot what? becasue they always expect .com or .net.
    • It makes sense if you want to combine e-mail with phone service and to roll out voice-recognition services based on DNS. Telling the phone "call rahga at virgin mobile" sounds at least somewhat cool to you, doesn't it? :)
  • by pbug ( 728232 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:06PM (#8524979) Homepage
    According to the article this namesapce is strictly for mobile devices. The actual TLD has not decided yet. This is going to be a namespace for your mobile number for instance bob.jones.cingular.mobile will be your mobile phone or wifi address. Well let us see how this one plays out.
  • by ChiralSoftware ( 743411 ) <info@chiralsoftware.net> on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:07PM (#8524992) Homepage
    These companies need to do anything they can do to get more mobile data use out of their networks, hardware and software. Margins on voice traffic are dropping and will continue to drop, hastened by VoIP, so how to make up for lost revenue? Pretty soon a large chunk of high-margin international calling traffic will be VoIP, which basically means flat rate, which means... no more big bucks for ATT, etc. By selling new services, like wireless data the carriers can save themselves (they hope). Another problem for Nokia and friends is that handsets are starting to be manufactured in China, and Nokia will not be able to build plain old voice handsets at competitive prices, so it needs to get away from the commoditized market of voice handsets, which means it needs better entertainment abilities, which means wireless data. A TLD could really fit into that. The wireless web has great potential but consumer awareness is poor, because there aren't any good ways for consumers to identify mobile content and there aren't any easy ways for websites to produce mobile content without learning a bunch of new technologies. Well, there are some ways [chiralsoftware.net] to do it now...
    • by Anonymous Coward
      > there aren't any good ways for consumers to identify mobile content and there aren't any easy ways for websites to produce mobile content without learning a bunch of new technologies.

      Wrong. http://www.opera.com/products/smartphone/
  • Why do we need more TLDs? Especially for commercial uses when the mega-corps already insist that if they own a .com domain then it is their right to have the .ca, .biz, .any ... domains aswell. Just seems like more wasted money on squatting an litigation.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:09PM (#8525012)
    I hear the American Thumb Rehabilitation Association is the real force behind this domain name.
  • QWERTY, or something similar, in mobile phones (and some PDA's) is still rare for most of us. Typing .mobile with a keypad on a mobile phone would take like, 14 keypresses... I suggest that they they change it to .mob, .mo, or .m, for more pleasant surfing.
    • shouldnt be that hard to program the web-browsers and clients to only transmit .mob, and have the actual DNS server on the other end interpret it as .mobile, but that'd be a hack...

      it'd be a lot easier if it were just .mbl
  • Hrm, sounds interesting, I can't wait to host a website from my cellphone, WWW.SOB.MOBILE

    Isn't this going to make it easier for spammers to target cellphones?
  • by tekrat ( 242117 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:13PM (#8525072) Homepage Journal
    Shado.mobile

    Now, that might be a cool URL after all. I say we also register a TLD named "Alpha" so we can have moonbase.alpha

    Hrmmm. You think Gerry Anderson would mind?

  • Six letter TLDs? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thedillybar ( 677116 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:16PM (#8525110)
    This is very annoying and not neccessary.

    "8005551212@messaging.nextel.com" works fine for me, and I don't think we need a ".mobile" until someone shows a very good reason to make one.

    1) It's a lot of letters to type.
    2) http://nextel.mobile/ just looks weird as hell.
    3) It will break some applications (more than .info already did possibly)
    4) I don't believe that it's necessary (or even convenient for a significant number of people)

  • That is something I've been asking for a while. The only relatively pure TLD is .edu, the rest of the TLDs mean absolutely nothing. .com can mean anything. I especially get pissed when I search for something to buy, see that its from a .com domain, and its a british site. I don't have anything against the brits, its just that the currency is different from mine and I would imagine that international transatlantic shipping for a $10 doodad is a bit much. Slashdot has both slashdot.org and slashdot.com.
    • Back when I first heard about Slashdot I went to slashdot.com and got nothing. Hmm, must be brok...hey wait... slashdot.org BINGO!!!
      Welcome to Slashdot!

      Just getting there was the first test. Much less crap was posted back in the "Good Old Days".

      Oh well... flame away all you really old people with the 3 and 4 digit UID's. I know, I'm still a newbie. *grin*
  • The late 1990s called. They want their business model back!
  • by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:21PM (#8525175)
    Why should a single corporate entity control an entire TLD?

    I can 'kinda' understand if Microsoft wanted .microsoft or Nokia wanted .nokia, but even then-- why waste the resources of the top-level DNS servers for something which will only serve to benefit one company?

    This is absolutely disgusting. It's bad enough that Verisign/NetworkSolutions/whatever has such control over .COM/.NET and over the DNS system in general (kof kof SITEFINDER kof kof), but now they want to start giving entire freaking TLDs over to companies wholesale?

    This is bullshit!
    • It is not a single corporate entity controlling the .mobile TLD, it is a consortium of at least a half dozen corporate entities... this is much better in the same sense that having OPEC control oil prices is better than having a single company control them.
  • by Supp0rtLinux ( 594509 ) <Supp0rtLinux@yahoo.com> on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:21PM (#8525183)
    As the article points out, its 45K to apply and well over 1 million to complete the process and get everything setup. But what about the individual and openness? I for one would like my own personal andrew.mobile... or maybe even andrew.myisp.mobile. After all, I have number portability now. Why not also have domain portability in regards to my wireless equipment? Wouldn't it be nice to switch providers... whether of my 3G network or my 802.11b, but keep my andrew.myisp.mobile and my phone number?

    Also... not sure how many others were bothered by the presence of M$ on the committee. Don't they have enough of their toes in enough industries? Now they want to be part of the control of the TLD for the mobile space??? Add up the net-worth of all the companies involved and M$ has the most $$$ which means they have the most strongarm potential. This isn't meant as a flame war, but rather a call for each of us to submit our opinions to ICANN about the presence of M$ (who isn't really a telco-type company... but just a software company) on the committee. If M$ is going to be onboard (as a s/w company), so should Trolltech and Palm and some of the other more *open* vendors who's software are also used in mobile devices. Otherwise, all I see is yet another entity that M$ can bully its way around, not to mention the fear of the .mobile root server possibly running on Windows???

    The only thing necessary for Micro$oft to triumph is for a few good programmers to do nothing". North County Computers [nccomp.com]
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by yelvington ( 8169 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:33PM (#8525319) Homepage
    Phone numbers already are globally unique, so there is no need to have second-level domain names within a mobile TLD. Having carriers or hardware makers involved is only counterproductive. We don't need any more vendor lock-in opportunities.

    On the other hand ... globally available free access to MY cellphone for the purpose of delivering messages sounds like an open door for yet more spam. Phonenumber.mbl is just too easy.

  • Oh what the heck - let them have a TLD of their own. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to sacrifice .biz and give that to the mobile community. After all, has anyone ever received an email from a .biz address that wasn't spam? It might as well be transformed to something usefull. Besides, it's short and easy to type using T9 completion.
  • Maybe I'm being ignorant here, but what do cell phones and PDAs need with DNS names anyway? What are people running on them that they need a special domain to handle all the demand for? I guess if I had a DNS name I could see whether my cell phone could handle a Slashdotting... "Grab the latest Fedora ISOs from my cell phone -- http://experiment626.attwireless.mobile". Most people don't even run servers from their home PCs that they need domain names for, what are they going to do on PDAs and cell phone

  • ...and move to 110 digit phone numbers. Some people already dial that many to save Save SAVE two and a half cents a minute on their vital long distance calls. Read that in some spam mail, so I know it's true. With the uber-numbers, we won't run out or worry about addressing all the cell phones until the next 3-brane collides with out universe and triggers another Big Bang.
  • I want to be the first to register bat.mobile
  • by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:43PM (#8525407)
    ICANN charges a non-refundable $45,000 for an application, and the total cost of developing a proper bid is reckoned to run into millions

    What better way to foster innovation and good ideas than to make sure the barrier to entry is so unbelievably high that even three of the largest corporations on the planet --combined-- are thought to have "barely" a chance at floating a few new letters through cyberspace?

    There's articifical scarcity, then there is intellegence scarcity. Five years after ICANN's creation, we still have (for all intents and purposes) no new TLDs. How many meetings in Hawaii and Barbados has that taken?

    If Microsoft wants .mobile, guess what, they can add it to Internet Explorer and the new TLD will exist literally overnight. I'd actually be in favor of this horrible break of standards because it would teach everyone a valuable lesson that these precious root servers are modern feudalism and we serfs should wise up and go form our own government and let the 14 non-elected lords go out and dig up their own turnips.

    -JoeShmoe
    .
  • I currently have a lot of people emailing me, currently at the phone of [phone number]@tmomail.com for tmobile. That, however, requires that people know what my provider is. When I switch (number portability act) it will change. If I could register [number].mobile, it would be kind of neat.

    Assuming was have an answer to the spam problem. I'd love to see governments make a useful pre-emptive strike, declare ANY form of communication (email, SMS, etc) with cell phones with a strict opt-in as illegal. Will n
  • Never thought about this before, but forget about just mobile phones... applying DNS(-ish stuff) along with Voice Recognition software, posibly off-site, would be nice to have eventually. Pick up the phone, "Call jacksmith at aol", phone number gets looked up and dialed.... Why on earth are we still using phone numbers?

    I wonder if I'll be marked as a troll for this. :)
  • enough already (Score:2, Interesting)

    by spudgun ( 39016 )
    Abolish .com .org .net .biz etc
    And terminate .info and .name with a flame-thrower.

    Create .com.us .org.us .com.uk
    etc

    Have, for example, ibm.com map to ibm.com.us if you are in the .us and ibm.com.uk if you are in the uk etc......

    The only reason me need more TLDs is because we have only 1 .com for the whole world

    Make Pepsi register in every country they trade in.....

    I can see it now, in the year 2050 when we live on mars and Europa ... still saying "all the cool domains are taken."
  • Not to be cynical but so what? Perhaps I am stupid (high probability), but I don't even use all of the TLD's we have now. In my little internet world, I am pretty much limited to .com, .edu, .gov, and .org. Not because I want to be, rather, I just haven't found a need to use/find the others.

    In fact, I can't think of a single instance in the last 3 years where I have used a "new" TLD like .tv or .info, etc.

    Is anyone really using these or am I just out of the loop?
  • Okay, I'll admit that I actually read the articles before posting but this one was odd. I got confused after reading half of the first sentence.

    Some of the biggest players in the mobile industry, including Nokia, Vodafone and Microsoft

    Microsoft? I did not know they are one of the biggest players in the phone industry. Did anyone else know this?
  • Scam (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jesus IS the Devil ( 317662 ) on Wednesday March 10, 2004 @04:56PM (#8525582)
    This is just another scam to get money from suckers' wallets. We have more than enough domain names as is. Domain registries are good money makers. After all, they're basically selling hot air. There's practically no overhead other than setting up a few DNS servers.

    Dot coms will always rule.
  • Why not standardize on mobile.microsoft.com
    mobile.nokia.com

    it is a natural progression to use the prefix not the suffix. Just like www and ftp and other protocols. I don't get it
  • I for one welcome our new useless TLD overlords, and offer the following suggestions for other new TLDs. .annoyingfangirlblog .dumbtoilethumorpage .webcomicwithlessthantenreaders .reallybadfanfiction

    This way real TLDs people actually want will not be taken up by wasteful webpages.
  • What a great idea. Let's make it even easier for spam to clog up our mobile devices. It'll take about 50 milliseconds after this domain goes online before spammers are SMS'ing everything in creation.
  • .movie, since every movie that comes out has a web site but there's often no way to guess the URL based on just the title of the movie (a few at random: http://www.sony.com/spider-man/, http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/50firstdates/, http://www.miramax.com/jerseygirl/, http://www.dreamworks.com/houseofsandandfog/, http://www.avp-movie.com/, http://www.lordoftherings.net/, http://www.butterflyeffectmovie.com/, http://www.peterpanmovie.net/).

    .radio for radio stations, so you could just enter a radio sta

  • I would like to have a .ppl (or .me) or some similar TLD for personal pages. (individuals only)

    And a .mail TLD with several large established mail servers on the .mail TLD which all mail runs through (encrypted) and has some verification system built in which eliminates spam.

    The whole TLD system is pretty lame as it stands now due to the lack of adherance to any sort of standard.

    Standard classes should be established and sites should agree to adhere to those classes.

    -.com - company commercial sites.
    -.or
  • by El ( 94934 )
    ICANN charges a non-refundable $45,000 for an application, and the total cost of developing a proper bid is reckoned to run into millions. That certainly shoots down my idea of requesting a .dork top level domain!
  • by El ( 94934 )
    I call first dibs on the bat.mobile domain name!
  • What I'd like to see is some small number of .TLDs to be administered solely by volunteers with SLDs handed out for free.

    Get ICANN to approve that and bail out of the loop. Then we can put our ideology and resources to the test.

    I'd say you'd need three of 'em, administered by three separate organizations, to insure that internal problems (such as resource exhaustion or faction fights) don't imperil the availability of servce. (Just like you need a minimum of three, not two, cell carriers in a region to
  • I understand DNS fairly well enough. There are several (13-ish last I read) TLD nameservers out there in various spots which manage all the DNS traffic in a hiarachtical fashion, rather straight forward....

    What I DONT understand is how ICANN can manage to make everyone think that no other options are available.

    Would it not be fairly (menaing without considerable time and expense) easly to setup a peer TLD DNS system with TLDs that we, users of the internet elect and implement.

    imagine this scenario:

    Vario
  • I have an idea. Let's make a domain for something that's known for being the most difficult device to input data into. Let's make it something sadistically long & difficult to type in, especially on phones without that automagic word guess thingy... I know... 6 666 22 444 555 33 (mobile) or 662453 ought to be hard enough to input! Perfect idea...
  • What's the point? Do any of these actually attract more business justifying the efforts of those involved? The only time I ever notice these is when a commercial has to emphasize ".tv" because people are used to going to a .com. ".com" has become a part of most people's vocabulary which makes it's pointless and stupid for marketting monkees to try and change it around. If these companies were smart, they'd stick with .com because that's what people know and are famiar with. I've seen first hand how .tv

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