‘Dot bangla’, ‘dot bd’ domains to be launched soon: Tayeb

Registry rights will remain with the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission and Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited

Faiz Ahmad Tayeb, special assistant to the chief adviser on posts, telecommunications, and information technology, has revealed that the dot bangla (.bangla) and dot bd (.bd) domains will be opened for public registration soon.

In a Facebook post late on Friday, he said the registry rights will remain with the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC) and Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), while resellers will be appointed. An API is also being developed for this purpose, according to him.

"Although millions of dot bangla and dot bd domains were expected to be hosted by now, only about 45,000 sites have been hosted. Of these, dot gov, dot bangla, and dot bd together account for 37,000 sites belonging to various government institutions," he said.

“This means the success of dot bangla and dot bd domains has been almost zero. The previous Awami League administration is responsible, as the work was blocked for the absurd reason that no foreign travel would take place.”

Highlighting concerns that domain name hosting was "draining foreign currency", he said: "This need to be stopped, at least partially.”

He added that .gov will be opened on a verified basis for government and autonomous institutions, while .edu and .bd can be opened for recognised educational institutions.

"Dot com and dot bd resellers will be made available. Decisions on dot org, dot bd, and other extended dot bd and dot bangla domain names will be taken after discussions with BTRC and BTCL.”