Numbers set to make WAP access easier

By MICHAEL FOREMAN

Auckland-based start-up Domain Numbers is betting that mobile phone users will find it easier to key in numbers than letters when they access the internet with WAP (wireless application protocol) handsets.

Director Graham Saywell said his company had spent about $500,000 registering numeric internet domain names and was now seeking to license them worldwide.

The idea works on a similar principle to alphanumeric 0800 numbers.

For example, instead of keying in the domain taxi.com as text, users would type 8294.com, which is one of 1200 .com domains belonging to Domain Numbers.

Mr Saywell said the traffic could then be passed to individual taxi companies who had licensed the domain in individual mobile phone coverage cells.

"Eventually, it could mean that you'll be able to get off a plane anywhere in the world and call a taxi company by entering the same four numbers.

"In around 18 months, when most handsets will include built in GPS [global positioning system] chips, you won't even have to talk to the taxi firm because they will already know where you are."

Mr Saywell said he came up with the idea two years ago when he attended a conference on the mobile internet.

Domain Numbers has also registered the numeric equivalents of 100 core generic words as .co.nz,.co.uk..com.au, .biz and .info domains.

At present, users must key in the suffixes after the first dot as text, but Mr Saywell said mobile phones would soon offer soft keys which could be programmed to spell out a suffix with one press.

Mr Saywell believed that some domains, such as 6397.com (news.com) would be licensed globally.

Others would be licensed in one or more territories only.

To demonstrate the system, Domain Numbers had already set up some numeric domains which link to working mobile websites. For example, 69437253.com would take people to the Herald's mobile website.

Mr Saywell was confident of being on to a winning idea but he admitted that in the present business climate selling licences was a hard task.

"The attitude we keep coming across is, 'Let's wait and see if they are still here in six months'."