The NSI Registry has more than 19 million names registered to date, and is currently offering its multilingual domain name registration services through more than 60 ICANN-accredited registrars around the world. Backed by US-based General Atlantic Partners LLC, i-DNS.net has developed a flexible Unicode-based technology that supports Row-based ASCII Compatible Encoding (RACE), UTF-5, UTF-8 and all common local encoding. It is fully compatible with commonly used Internet browsers and inter-operable with the current Domain Name System (DNS).
While the Internet is one of the most inclusive, widely available technologies ever developed, non-English language usage is still a significant barrier. One of the functions of the Domain Name System is to translate server-recognizable IP addresses like 208.184.174.12 to easily remembered domain names like www.we-multilingual.com.
Many non-English content websites, bounded to an English domain name, have chosen numeric domain names instead since a string of numbers might prove easier to remember to the non-English speaking user than a domain name in a foreign tongue.
Non-English Internet users currently comprise an estimated 40 per cent of Internet users worldwide. This is projected to increase to 60 per cent of Internet users worldwide by 2003.