Egypt’s Arabic Top-Level Domain Implemented in the Internet Root Zone
09-May-2010
CAIRO - Dr. Tarek Kamel, Minister of Communications and Information Technology, has announced that the Arabic ccTLD of Egypt "مصر." is now implemented in the Internet root zone.
A press release by the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology stated that Minister Kamel has also witnessed the signing of registrar licenses with three Egyptian companies, TE Data, Vodafone Data and Link Registrar. The three companies have been accredited by the National Telecom Regulatory Authority to be the new registrars for the Egyptian IDN ccTLD "مصر."
“Introducing Arabic Domain Names is a milestone in Internet history”, said Dr. Kamel, “It is the harvest of many years of hard work among global and regional Internet experts. This great step will open up new horizons for e-services in Egypt. It will boost the number of online users in the country and will enable Internet services to penetrate new market segments by eliminating language barriers.”
Dr. Kamel added, that he is proud that Egypt’s IDN ccTLD is one of the very first IDN domains added to the Internet root zone and that registrations under the Egyptian domain "مصر." are the first Arabic domain names on the Internet. He acknowledged ICANN’s efforts in that respect and recognized their collaboration with the global Internet community to address needs non-Latin language communities.
He added, “this work is a result of the overall efforts of a team of Internet experts Mostafa Abdel Wahed, Manal Ismail and Christine Arida”.
The implementation of "مصر." in the Internet root zone comes as a result of Egypt’s application for its Arabic ccTLD within the framework of ICANN’s IDN fast track process.
ICANN had announced in November 2009, during the Sharm El Sheikh IGF’09 Meeting, that it has opened the door for countries using non-Latin based languages to request their country top-level domains in their official languages. Egypt was the first country to apply for its Arabic ccTLD within the fast track process, which currently, as per the ICANN, has a total of 21 requests representing 11 languages.
Dr. Amr Badawi, Executive President of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority, said that domain registration services under "مصر." will start officially during the month of May, with the presence of Rod Beckstrom, ICANN CEO.
The service will be provided to the public through the three accredited registrars, TE Data, Vodafone Data and Link Registrar. Dr. Badawi added that the Egyptian Universities Network, current registry of the .EG ccTLD, will be providing domain registration services to the academic and governmental sectors.
The National Telecom Regulatory Authority, the "مصر." registry, had earlier this year, during the month of February, announced an RFP for entities interested in providing domain name registration services under the Arabic ccTLD of Egypt. Offers submitted by the different entities were evaluated and three companies were selected to be licensed as registrars.
ICANN is an internationally organized, public benefit non-profit company responsible for the global coordination of the Internet's system of unique identifiers like domain names and the addresses used in a variety of Internet protocols that help computers reach each other over the Internet.