CAIRO, November 4, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- With one month to go until Sunrise opens, trademark owners were today warned that they risk missing out on being listed in the new global, 'live' contacts directory if they fail take advantage of the first come, first served application period for their branded .tel domains.

Many trademark owners, including international managed office space organization eOffice ( http://www.eoffice.net), are already working with their ICANN-accredited registrars to secure their .tel domains to be at the front of the application queue. Pier Paolo Muchelli, Founder and CEO of eOffice, said: "We're really excited about the prospects for .tel due to the ease of use and global reach that it will afford us to market our businesses simply and quickly to customers, especially on mobile devices. We'll be looking at the .tel to provide our customers with our global locations and contact information for our venues and staff, so that they can also be in a position to deliver great customer service through our managed office space."

A .tel domain provides organizations of all sizes a named listing with unlimited contact information in a global directory, accessible from any device connected to the internet. Customers can then search for and find up-to-date contact information quickly at little or no cost to them, connecting with .tel owners how they want to. Additionally, the .tel is search engine optimized through its ability to store indexable keywords, providing additional content for branded discoverability on the web. All of this is provided without any further investment over and above cost of purchasing the domain name, such as website building and maintenance, web hosting or other services normally associated with domain name hosting. It also requires no technical skill to set up, being managed by a simple dashboard.

Applications for trademarked domain names are already being received through a network of well over 100 ICANN-accredited registrars on a first-come, first-served basis, meaning that companies could easily miss out on owning .tel domain names for important trademarks. Registrars from Melbourne IT Digital Brand Services (DBS) through to Moniker are providing .tel to their customers.

Anders Ericsson, CEO of Melbourne IT DBS ( http://www.melbourneitdbs.com/), said: "The .tel domain is unique in its focus and an innovative internet communications tool. Organizations will want to secure their brand names to gain a competitive edge in what could become a significant online directory in the very near future."

Monte Cahn, President of Moniker ( http://www.moniker.com), which has had a unique role in revolutionizing the domain name aftermarket through their pioneering work in staging live auctions, expects strong appeal for the .tel top level domain after the initial Sunrise period. ""This will be a valuable new top-level domain," said Moniker founder Monte Cahn. "We've had great success with TLD introductions, and we expect a strong adoption rate for .TEL. With the convenience of getting a turn-key website and getting immediate traffic from the .TEL directory, any strategic-minded business should be sure to include .TEL names in their domain name asset plans."

About Telnic Limited

Founded in 2000, Telnic Limited is the UK-based Registry Operator and Sponsoring Organization for the new .tel sponsored top level domain (sTLD). For more information regarding the .tel domain or Telnic Limited, please visit http://www.telnic.org. .tel will launch to trademark holders on December 3, 2008 and everyone else on February 3, 2009.

SOURCE Telnic Limited