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A new UK domain name for wireless LANs?

If a non-executive director of Nominet and member of its Public Advisory Board, Alex Bligh, has anything to do with it, there could be a new second level domain name for wireless networks by the new year.

Strictly speaking, it won't be a new domain, it will be the extension of the chronically underused existing .net.uk domain.

Mr Bligh wrote - in response to a Nominet subcommittee's conclusion that the domain should be wiped out altogether - that .net.uk could find a host of new subscribers if it was opened up so pre-registration rules on the domain were no longer imposed.

The example he gave was of a wireless network. "If [someone] wanted to set up a community wireless LAN in [his] street ... he might well want to register nightingale.net.uk - the domains nightingale.org.uk and nightingale.co.uk have already been registered," Bligh wrote in the paper.

The net.uk domain, it has been argued, is a throwback to the early days of the Net and now largely meaningless. However, Mr Bligh envisages a net.uk set up for the next generation of Net-based technology.

The subcommittee that made the original decision has been asked to review its conclusions, which it will need to do before 4 December when the main PAB committee next meets.

If you want to make your views known in time for that meeting, send any responses to pab-suggest@nominet.org.uk

The report by Alex Bligh can be found at www.alex.org.uk/nominet/netuk.pdf . The subcommittee's original report can be found at www.gradwell.com/peter/pab/net.uk/net.uk-report-200802.htm