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In an effort to break down language barriers to Internet access, a movement is afoot in Asia to develop a system for the use of multilingual domain names. Although Internet access has spread rapidly in the Asia-Pacific region over the past few years, many who do not work in the English language are often shut out.  Therefore, it is hoped that multilingual content and multilingual domain names will be developed to reach those who do not work in the English language, but in other Asian languages.

Concerned individuals responded and came together to form the Multilingual Internet Names Consortium (MINC).  MINC represents over three years of work on developing multilingual domain names. The effort was begun by Dr. Tan Tin Wee of the National University of Singapore in early 1998.  A team of researchers from across Asia developed the first multilingual international domain name system, named iDNS.  Development of the iDNS prototype was supported by a PanAsia R&D Grant, awarded in February 1999.

The result was the creation of an experimental testbed for international domain names called iDomain.  This prototype demonstrated that multilingual domain names can co-exist with the current Roman text domain name system.  When a non-English domain name is inputted into a Web browser, the iDNS system works by intercepting the multilingual domain name, converting the character string to ASCII text -- understood by all Internet servers, and then completes its task by accessing the correct web page.

MINC is a non-profit, international organisation currently comprising over 40 members from industry, academia, research, government, investors and other international organisations.  MINC's work on internationalisation of Internet names includes a focus on standards and protocols, technical coordination and liaison with other international bodies, such as the Asia Pacific Networking Group (APNG) and the Internet Assigned Names Consortium (ICANN).

MINC currently comprises 6 working groups:

• Language (Arabic, Chinese, Indian/Tamil);

• Protocol Architecture;

• Deployment Co-ordination;

• Registration Policy;

• Interoperability Testing; and,

• Others.

At a recent conference - plans for technical specifications and standards in multilingual domain names and administration of this new system by various countries such as Japan, Korea and India, were presented and discussed.

Membership to MINC is free to individuals who support the concept of a multilingual Internet.  There is a small fee for corporate members. Interested parties can view membership and other details at the MINC website.

MINC's next general meeting will be held in Honolulu, Hawaii at the end of January 2001, prior to the Asia Pacific Advanced Networking Consortium (APAN) meeting.

Individuals who are interested in receiving updates on MINC's activities via e-mail can sign up to the announce@minc.org general mailing list.  Instructions are available at http://www.minc.org/ml/subscribe.html.

Resources:
MINC -http://www.minc.org
APNG iDNS for iPV6 -http://www.apng.org/commission/idns/ipv6/
iDomain - http://www.apng.org/commission/idns/idomain/
The APNG iNames - http://www.apng.org/commission/idns/iname/

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2001-02-18

News 42 of 50