The .tel is a service that allows individuals and businesses alike to store and manage all their contact information and keywords directly in the DNS without the need to build, host or manage a website. For more information, go through our quick .tel tour or watch videos .tel for businesses and .tel for individuals.

Companies can store different types of information under their .tel domain:
1. Contact Info: Telephone, Mobile, Email, VOIP, Fax, and so on
2. Content Links: Websites, portals, blogs, links to partners or affiliates, links to photo and video materials, social profiles, etc.
3. Navigation Links: links to sub-folders for information on different company departments or locations
4. Geolocation: a map to your location and a text address
5. Indexable Text: An intro or status message at the top and keywords at the bottom, both of which are indexed by leading search engines
6. Advertisements: Sponsored links at the top, right and bottom of the page; Google AdSense also enabled in March 2010 Watch Video.

The value of a .tel domain lies with the ability to host personal (or corporate) contact information directly in the DNS, which can then be universally accessible. This stands in contrast to the typical use of the DNS for other TLDs, in which the DNS only provides a mapping between domain names and IP addresses. Watch Video.

The .tel enables:
1. Click to communicate contact information
2. Quick real-time updates from browsers or mobile phones
3. Dynamic profiles that you can switch on the go
4. Powerful privacy settings that let you choose who sees what information
5. Multi-lingual keywords indexed by leading search engines
6. Multi-location setup with contact information and keywords at every level
7. Effective mobile presence Watch Video.

The .tel enables you to protect your private data, allowing it to be seen only by people you authorize. For more information, please see How do I protect my Private Data.

If your customers do not know your .tel domain name they can search for you on Telpages, the .tel global business directory, or leading search engines such as Google and Bing. Watch Video.
Effective use of .tel domains as an SEO tool can improve your search engine rankings. Watch slideshow on SEO

Your customers can enter Your Company's .tel domain into any web browser on any internet enabled device including mobile. Wherever possible, .tel enables all your contact information, maps and weblinks to become clickable so your customers can communicate with you instantly. The .tel can also be used for interactive communication, such as voting mechanisms driven by premium numbers and SMS/text messages. For example, viewers could access my-idol.tel from their mobile telephone and vote for their favorite contestant. Watch Video.

ICANN, the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers, is the international organization responsible for the oversight of the coordination of the Domain Name System and Top Level Domains (.com, .net, .org, .biz, etc.). More information is available at ICANN.org.

ICANN has delegated to Telnic Limited, the .tel Sponsoring Organization, the responsibility for developing, implementing and policing certain policies related to the .tel Top Level Domain and its community.

You can submit your views on and objections to the established or revision of standards, policies, procedures, and practices or the manner in which standards, policies, procedures and practices are enforced by contacting Telnic through a number of different channels:
1. Email us at community@telnic.org
2. Register on our forum (telnic.org/forum) and provide your views on there.

You can only purchase your .tel domain online through an ICANN accredited registrar or their reseller. Get Started to buy your name online.

Prices for a .tel domain name vary from registrar to registrar, but are comparable with the prices for other popular domain names.

Typically, registrars will allow you to register domain names for up to 10 years.

The minimum number of characters in a .tel domain is 2 and the maximum number is 63 not including the .tel suffix. Every domain must contain at least two letters or numbers from a-z or "A to Z" and 0-9 in standard US ASCII script or one IDN character in non ASCII script. No domain can begin or end with a hyphen nor can a domain have a hyphen in the 3rd and 4th position (e.g. aa--g.tel). The .tel naming conventions are described in detail in the Acceptable Use Policy. The reserved list is also available for review.

The WHOIS service enables you retrieve information on.tel domain name holders, although individuals may opt out of WHOIS and hide some of their contact details. To perform a WHOIS lookup you can use our web facility or a variety of other lookup methods such as UNIX "whois" command.

You can sell or transfer a .tel domain just as you would with other domain names. Please be notified that according to ICANN regulations, domains can only be transferred to a different registrar after 60 days from the date of registration. After 60 days since the registration date you may contact your registrar to transfer your .tel domain as required. You can only transfer a domain name before it expires.

You can transfer an active .tel domain to a .tel accredited registrar of your choice. Because services may differ, check that your prospective registrar provides the services you may require.
To get started, obtain a unique authinfo code from your current registrar and initiate the transfer through the new registrar of your choice. Please be informed that it is the obligation of your current registrar to provide you the authinfo code; Telnic is not in a position to issue this code for you.
Please note that it is your responsibility to transfer content of your .tel domain to the new registrar. For that, go to the old registrar control panel before the transfer and create a Backup copy of your data via Settings. Then, once you have been given access to your new control panel by your new provider, use the backup to restore your .tel domain. Once your new registrar completes the setup, your new .tel will use the restored content.

The .tel domain names are subject to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP), which establishes a procedure for resolving certain trademark disputes relating to domain names. You can also seek redress in the court. Please get a qualified legal advice to determine the appropriate venue for resolution of your dispute.

You can renew your domain through your provider where you initially made the purchase. They may also have an option that you can set the domain to "auto renew" every year.

You can transfer to a different provider before the expiry date of your domain. Performing a transfer will automatically add a year to your registration term.

Your domain may have been auto-renewed by your provider. Check the "Expiry Date" in the WHOIS. If this is in the future, then your domain has been renewed and it is likely that your provider has already taken payment for this.
If the expiry date is in the past, the domain has expired, but is in the 45 day auto-renewal period. You need to contact your provider as soon as possible to renew the domain as it may be set to delete at any point (see next question regarding domains that have been set to delete).

Your domain may still be in the redemption period, during which you as the domain owner can redeem it. Domains in redemption will have a "Pending Delete" status in the WHOIS. If this is the case, you should contact your provider to redeem the domain and cancel the deletion. This is likely to incur a premium fee, but your provider will be able to advise fully on this.
If the domain is no longer listed in the WHOIS it is available for general registration and you can purchase it as a new registration.

It's possible that your provider has not completed the renewal, or they are waiting for the auto-renewal which will occur 45 days after the expiry date. Please contact your domain name provider to confirm what the situation is.

Even though a domain has passed its expiry date it may still be renewed by the domain owner at any time during the 45-day auto-renewal period, or during the 30-day redemption period following a deletion. Unless a domain is expressly deleted by a registrar, it renews automatically for another year at the end of the 45-day period following its expiration.
If the current owner does not wish to renew the domain, the registrar issues a deletion and changes the WHOIS status to "Pending Delete". If the owner doesn't request restoration of the domain within 30 days of this redemption period, the domain is kept in a 5-day deletion period, and then released for re-registration.
Summing it up, a domain name may be released for anyone to register in a period between 35 and 80 days after its expiration.

IDN stands for Internationalized Domain Name. An internationalized domain name (IDN) is an internet domain name that contains at least one character that is displayed in software applications such as web browsers, in whole or in part, in a language-specific script or alphabet, such as Chinese, Russian or the Latin-based languages with diacritics, such as German.
An example would be Jörn.tel or 李.tel. These names will be seen in software applications such as web browsers. IDN-aware applications translate these names into traditional ASCII-only strings such as, for example, xn--1lq90i.tel. As a result, IDNs are displayed in their internationalized form in the user interface, while internally applications and servers communicate using ASCII-only forms of the same domains.
Every registered IDN must be associated with a specific language. For more information on IDNs, please see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalized_domain_name

Seventeen languages are currently supported. Those languages are Chinese, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.

IDN policies are a product of a collaborative work of technical, legal and linguistic experts. Telnic believes that the best avenue for developing IDN policies for a given language is through the countries and communities that use that language. The reasoning for Telnic"s choice of languages is therefore based on how close a given country or community is to a consensus in regards to what rules must govern their local language IDNs.

IDN policy development is an ongoing process. Telnic will be considering the introduction of new IDN languages based on the results of the discussions within the respective communities.

Generally, all characters that are used in the language an IDN is associated with are allowed. For more details, please refer to the policy document for the corresponding IDN language. IDN policies are published on Telnic's web site at telnic.org/policies.html. Each of the policies contains a character table that lists all the characters allowed for an IDN in a given language.

Any characters that are not included in the character table for a given language, are not allowed. For example, one cannot register münchén.tel as a German language IDN, because letter "é" is not part of the German language character table.

IDN.tel domain names can be registered through a sub-set of our ICANN-accredited Registrar partners. A list of those selling .tel domains and IDNs will be found at telnic.org/get-started-buy.html. Those that support IDN.tel domain name registrations will be marked with an asterisk.

Apart from the restrictions on the types of characters that can be registered and the languages supported, there are no further restrictions on the registration of IDN.tel domain names and 1 and 2 character IDNs are available.

Most modern browsers, such as Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7.0 and Safari support IDNs. More details of IDN support in other applications are available at idn.icann.org/IDN-aware_software.

The part of an e-mail address that appears to the left of the @-sign is subject to different rules than the ones that govern the domain name part of the address, which appears to the right of the @-sign. Some modern e-mail clients, such as Microsoft Outlook, allow use of internationalized domain labels to the right of the @-sign. Protocol for full internationalization of e-mail addresses is currently being developed. More information is available at idn.icann.org/E-mail_test.

Yes, if it is available and conforms to the character sets and language tables available.

Exact retail pricing is decided by our participating registrars, and so varies from company to company. Generally, however, Internationalised .tel domains do not cost any more than regular .tel domain names.

Yes, for IDNs associated with Chinese, Japanese and Russian languages .tel employs a variant blocking mechanism so domain names in different scripts that look confusingly similar cannot be registered. For example, if the domain name pear.tel is registered, реаг.tel (all these characters are Cyrillic) will not be available for registration. Please see the IDN Policies for more details.

A "decorated" character domain is one which has one or more characters that has linguistic "ornaments". An example of a "decorated" domain is Björn, as opposed to Bjorn, which has no "decorated" characters.

All IDN.tel domains will be first-come, first served. There is no automatic right to gain a "decorated" character domain automatically.

With one specific exception, every .tel domain name (in its ASCII-Compatible Encoded form) is treated independently. Each domain name is handled on a "first-come, first-served" basis. This is a continuation of the current .tel policy.
That exception deals with Chinese Internationalised Domain Names, where Traditional and Simplified Chinese characters are considered to be "the same". In that specific case, Telnic ensures that when a Chinese IDN is registered, the domain name that consists entirely of Simplified Chinese characters and the domain name that consists entirely of Traditional Chinese characters is managed together with the requested domain; these are treated as one unit.
The ownership of a domain name does not give any automatic rights to register any other domain name. Thus ownership of shop.tel does not give any rights to ashop.tel or theshop.tel. This is also true for names that have different spellings, so that Smith is different from Smithe.
In order not to act arbitrarily, Telnic processes names on a purely deterministic basis. This is done with commonly defined rules, not ones that have been invented in an "ad hoc" manner.
Telnic will not make arbitrary and subjective decisions on what names people can use, so it simply treats each name as being different.

Possible Rules for Assignment of International Domain Names (IDNs) is not a simple subject.
Since general availability of .tel domains, Telnic has not made decisions on the comparability or otherwise of domain names. With the introduction of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), the situation becomes more complex. Within a language, some words have forms with and without "ornamented" characters, and there are a number of different rules to map from one name form to another. Unfortunately, these rules conflict. That means that there is no single deterministic scheme that will work for any word.
Many words have crept into usage in other languages, and those words differ in the way they apply diacriticals, or even whether there are diacriticals in the different language versions. Some languages drop the "ornamentation" for some capital letters. Other languages do use these ornamented capital letters. Thus is may not be clear whether or not two domain requests that have been converted to lower case are the same. Thus transliteration between the "ornamented" and plain versions of a character might need to be considered.
Here are just a few of the rules that might apply:
  — should ä be associated with a or ae?
  — should ö be associated with o or oe?
  — should ü be associated with u or ue?
But then...   — should ae or A or a be associated with ä?
  — should oe or O or o be associated with ö?
  — should ue or U or u be associated with ü?
As an example, should Noel (a first name, a town in Missouri, a hurricane, a company in Columbia, and a poetical English word for Christmas) be associated with the string Nöl (using German rules), or with Nöel (Christmas in French and other languages)? Conversely, is Nöl associated with Noel, or with Nol? Also, should Nöel be associated with Noeel (again applying German language rules)?
Thus, if noel.tel is registered, should Telnic block an attempt to register nöl.tel? Conversely, if someone registers nöl.tel, will Telnic then have to block a subsequent attempt to register the domain noel.tel? Also, what of the domain name nol.tel – should this also be blocked? Finally, if nol.tel has already been registered, does this mean that nöl and nöel are not available?
Trying to apply these conflicting rules to block registration attempts for "associated" words would raise many questions and the confusion that would bring would not help anyone. Without checking every name in advance against dictionaries for each language, it is not possible to come to single, unambiguous, clear and fair answer. As the result would still be subjective, Telnic continues to treat each domain name as a separate item, and allocates names on a first-come, first-served basis. After much research, Telnic has concluded that this is the most equitable solution for all community members.
Telnic does not make any judgemental on whether or not there is any prior right to a name. That remains a task for WIPO or other approved arbitrators. If an organisation believes that it has right to a domain for which it has not applied or secured, it can use the UDRP, the decisions of which Telnic of course respects.

Many providers have a "Forgotten your password" link on the .tel control panel login page. Enter the registrant email address you specified in WHOIS to receive your username and reset your password. If your login page does not show this link, you will need to contact your .tel provider to reset your password. If you don't know where to login to your .tel, check online or contact your .tel provider.

After buying your company's .tel, you will configure it using a simple online interface on the website of the registrar from whom you bought your .tel. You will not need to build a website or hire a new webmaster. Configuring a .tel is very easy and allows you to input your data and create navigation (for multiple locations or departments). Your company can update its contact information anytime an as often as needed. Watch Video.

Integrating the .tel into your existing website can be achieved either by providing a link to your .tel from your 'Contact Us' page, or by using the .tel Website Integration Tool to customize your 'Contact Us' page with .tel technology, making your data much more dynamic while maintaining your company's look and feel. Watch Video.

Please consult the Acceptable Use Policy for details on how .tel domains should be used.

To request access the .tel zone file, complete and sign the .tel Zone File Access Agreement form. You need to return the form to Telnic Limited via post, fax or email zone-file-access-requests@registry.nic.tel.

Yes. You are allowed to run a commercial directory-style service under your .tel domain under the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP); the restrictions are that you are not allowed to sub-delegate the management of that contact information to a third party.

It depends. Please email resellers@telnic.org to find out what resources are available for resellers.

Telnic does not provide refunds for .tel domains to domain holders. Please check whether your registrar has a refund policy.

The link, username and password for accessing your .tel control panel have been sent to you by your .tel provider when you purchased your .tel. If you cannot find the link, go to Manage your .tel and type in your domain name in the form.

On June 1st 2011, Telnic released two-character (aa.tel or a1.tel) and numeric-only strings between 2 and 7 digits with or without hyphens (11.tel or 1234567.tel or 123-456.tel) for registration in a first-come, first-served registration process. From October 15th 2013, Telnic will release numeric-only strings longer than 7 digits. Restrictions still apply on .tel domains with fewer than two characters.

Single character (a.tel), single digit (1.tel), and two-character domains matching existing ccTLDs will be restricted. In addition, general AUP restrictions apply, such as nn--nn.tel.

Applications via an ICANN-accredited Registrar or a supporting reseller will be accepted by Telnic from 3.00 p.m. BST on Tuesday 15th October 2013. Registrars and .tel service providers may take pre-orders prior to this date in order to be ready to secure your preferred numeric string when registrations open. Telnic does not accept registrations prior to this date and time, but anyone can apply afterwards.

Pricing varies between .tel service providers. Please check with your preferred service provider or Registrar for their pricing. A list of supporting Registrars will be published at telnic.org/get-started-buy.html. Any strings already released will remain at the current price and will vary depending on the Registrar or .tel service provider you choose to purchase your .tel name from.

No. Numeric .tel names are not telephone numbers, and entering a .tel name into a browser will not initiate a telephone call to that number. A numeric .tel name provides the same functionality as any other .tel name.

Yes, if a numeric .tel name is available for registration that happens to coincide with your telephone number, you may register for it. The same is true for any other number combination – such as your birthday, your anniversary or the postal code for where you live. Be aware, however, that you will not have any more right to register a particular numeric .tel than anyone else. Numeric .tel names are registered on a first-come, first-served basis.