.Tel Which Once Had 340K Registrations Slips To Under 100K

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.Tel which is not a new gTLD but gTLD that was launched in 2005, by January 2011 .Tel had around 340,000 domain registrations.

By February 2014, when the new gTLD’s started to launch .Tel had around 150,000 domain registrations.

According to RegistarsStats.com, .Tel had a net loss of over 700 domain names yesterday bringing the total number of domain registrations to now under 100K to 98,679.

According to .Tel’s site, there are over 100 registrars are taking .Tel domain registrations.

The price of a .tel registration at Network Solutions appears to be $34.99

 

About Michael Berkens

Michael Berkens, Esq. is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheDomains.com. Michael is also the co-founder of Worldwide Media Inc. which sold around 70K domain to Godaddy.com in December 2015 and now owns around 8K domain names . Michael was also one of the 5 Judges selected for the the Verisign 30th Anniversary .Com contest.

Comments

  3. steve says

    I registered some super premium .tel domains during the “land rush”. I let them drop about 8 years ago.

    They set the bar too low. It was supposed to be bigger than .mobi.

  5. Michael Berkens says

    Steve”Actually .tel and .mobi had different “purposes”

    .mobi was to make websites mobile friendly before the iphone came out great curtailing the need for a .mobi while .Tel was a self generating that was meant to allow someone to access all of your phone numbers, social media accountant, mailing address, email addresses etc.

  7. steve says

    Mike (MB),

    You’re right. But they both bombed.

    I still have about 5 super premium .mobi names. If they were.com, woot woot. But as .mobi, boo hoo. No expectations.

  8. Bruce says

    I know… I invested about $400 in that extension when it launched. What was I thinking. That format is useless.

  10. Anonymous says

    If they relaunched, getting rid of this stupid directory website requirement and users to use their own nameservers, I bet they’d find some more success.

  11. Samit says

    Not surprised, the implementation and the marketing message both need tweaking, but it has potential to go up 10x if they do change it, reg fees are around $15 at some registrars afaik.

    In it’s current format, the numbers will probably keep dropping, I dropped most of mine, even though they were amazing keywords.

    If the registry or someone who acquires the registry is interested in knowing how, they’re welcome to retain us as consultants.

    • Rubens Kuhl says

      .contact has been delegated for a while but haven’t filed a launch plan yet. Note that they don’t have any services similar to .tel in the .contact registry agreement, so any service will still need to be requested to ICANN thru RSEPs.

  14. Eric Lyon says

    I can’t say that I am surprised at all. This just looked like one of those extensions that would struggle out of the gate when they first launched. Sometimes you can just call it like it is.

  16. Norbert Mayer-Wittmann says

    Which is better & worse> .TEL or FB ? @Gmail?!?
    I don’t use FB much anymore.
    All mail from @gmail goes directly to spam.
    People who don’t want to contact me via my .tel probably aren’t serious.
    Small or large doesn’t matter as much as reliable, does the job, etc.
    A free bestseller isn’t worth anything.

  18. Mike Seaton says

    Many of the comments made above are fair enough (I’ve been one of Telnic’s biggest critics) – for the .TEL gTLD BEFORE 13 MARCH 2017.

    From 13 March 2017 you can set the .TEL Nameservers at your Registrar to any value you choose, meaning your .TEL domain will operate identically to .COM, .NET, etc. The only difference with the easily-remembered .TEL extension is that currently it is substantially cheaper than the equivalent .COM, .NET, etc.

    If you don’t want “Normal DNS” you can set up a 1-page Telhosting page FREE OF CHARGE (no hosting or software update fees) which automatically adjusts the domain screen to the type of internet device being used, has click-to-call, sn image gallery, video, PayPal integration, etc.

    So an easy 1-page site – at no additional cost to registration for those starting out – or the “Normal DNS” of any other gTLD – but at a fraction of the cost for premium keyword domain names !

    Here’s details of the major changes that happened to the .TEL gTLD on 13 March 2017 – http://www.tel.community/t4539-the-smartest-move-telnic-ever-made#17045

    Here are 5 Good Reasons to Buy a .TEL domain now – http://www.tel.community/t4539-the-smartest-move-telnic-ever-made#17045

    What would FX.ext cost in any other generic 3 character extension ?

    FX.tel (yet to be set up ready for sale) cost me virtually nothing – Go figure !