The company behind the registration service is a Singapore-based company, i-DNS.net International.
The technology behind this service originated out of a research project by the National University of Singapore (NUS) started in March 1998, which later spun-off into an independent registry providing registration services for multilingual domain names.
Apart from the Complex Chinese Big5 Code and Simplified Chinese GB Code, i-DNS.net has also launched in February this year, registration services for six other languages, among which included Thai, Tamil and Hindi.
i-DNS.net is a company based in Silicon Valley, developing softwares capable of supporting 30 to 40 languages, resolving them into special codes, which in turn link Web surfers to their desired websites.
The company is planning to launch the service in Thailand, India, Australia and Singapore.
i-DNS.net's next goals is believed to be the multilingual versions of domain names managed by Network Solutions.
Network Solutions is an American company, worth about US$1 billion, which is providing registration services for global English domain types, particularly, '.com', '.org' and '.net'.
It also serves as a control centre, ensuring there are no domain name diputes over the Internet.
The technology developed by i-DNS.net is not difficult to implement, but the greatest opposing forces come from the different regulations in the various countries, and it is no easy task to convince these countries to accept and recognize the service provided by i-DNS.net as standard.
For example, China is now developing a registration service for simplified Chinese domain names.
If plans come through, chances of implementing i-DNS.net's technology will be even slimmer.
In view of the current situation, it might not be appropriate to register domain names in other languages as yet, moreover, the charges for such domain names are also not practical.
Furthermore, major search engines are currently still using English as the main language, the English '.com' will still be the mainstream.
In the last issue, 'http://www.englishstreet.com/carman/domainnamereg.htm' mentioned that webmasters will be able to register long domain names formed by a chain of a few key words, and will be able to link these to the homepage.
The writer is currently utilising a service provided by this website which provides registration services for domain names up to 67 characters.
At a fee of US$60 per year, this is much cheaper (but not the cheapest) than the normal US$70 registration charges.
Interested users are most welcomed to take a look at the writer's personal website at 'http://www.englishstreet.com/carman/domainnamereg.htm'.
Note also that when registering domain names, adding 's' after key words generally raises search prioity.
Mr Ng said the company was negotiating with authorities to provide Chinese Web addresses ending in .hk or .cn.
-- Translated Article
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