mrdomainman said:
Bottom line is... every TLD can do what .tel can do.
.tel has restrictions.
The short answer is yes, but the long answer is no.
Domain owners have had over 20 years to publish contact information through DNS records, but the vast majority haven't done so, at least not publicly (some organisations use ENUM internally) - it's a chicken and egg problem. People aren't going to develop applications and services just for a few large organisations, and nobody is going to use a directory service that only includes these behemoths, therefore it hasn't gone nuclear.
Most domain owners don't even understand the nature of DNS, or what an A record really means, let alone the more exotic record types. Until now there has been no unified domain directory platform to easily manage these records in a consistent and kickass way. Your local florist probably doesn't print expensive brochures that he drops on doorsteps - he uses the Yellow Pages for that, and he probably doesn't understand the printing techniques, either. It doesn't matter.
Before the web we had dial-in BBS that you could use to publish information, so why did Sir Tim even bother to create the web? Because he and his mates understood the nature and value of information, and saw a better way. In today's world, people could create their own mini-feeds on their websites, but people and organisations (with and without websites) are choosing to adopt Twitter at a phenomenal rate.
Social systems change all the time, so too the world of telecoms has and is changing dramatically; old problems are becoming more pronounced, and new problems are emerging. The .tel presents some very elegant solutions, and IMO is ripe to benefit from the network multiplier effect.
I can certainly understand why, at first glance, some people see the A record restriction (for accredited TelHosting providers) as a garden wall, but I would argue that sometimes garden walls can be beneficial. Nothing is ever written in stone - if/when .tel flies, perhaps there will be reasons for the community to argue that TelHosting restrictions be relaxed, I have no idea - at this point I don't see any good reasons. Does anybody? And please don't bother saying, "Because I want to host a website" - I'd like to see a deeper discussion than this.
There is always resistance to new ideas - I don't even wish to try very hard at changing your mind, because the only way you'll be persuaded is when you actually see the successes of .tel. Good ideas implemented well always win, even if you don't understand them
