Foreign characters pass web test

Tests have been carried out to see whether adding foreign characters to web domain names would disrupt the speed of the internet.

The international character sets were tested in October last year, and results published this week show that the additional characters did not slow down web access.

"All answers were consistent with expected behaviour and no unexpected delays were discovered," Lars-Johan Liman, a senior systems specialist at Swedish firm Autonomica AB, said in a report on the experiment. 

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, which carried out the tests, hopes to add character sets such as Chinese and Arabic by 2008. 

However, China is already working on its own system to add its language to web domain names. The Chinese government released a software plug-in a year ago that allowed Mandarin letters to be used in browsers.

Currently sites must use just 37 characters to create their web address, including the English alphabet, the numbers zero to nine and a dash.

See also:

Internationalised domain names inch forward

Non-ASCI characters clear Icann test  09 Mar 2007

Icann shield beats DNS hackers

February attack beaten by Anycast system installed in 2002  12 Mar 2007

Plans firm up for .xxx domain

Icann dusts off plans for internet red light district  09 Jan 2007

Spamhaus appeals US shutdown ruling

Anti-spam organisation hires US lawyers to fight its case  18 Oct 2006

Spam hits the fan in Spamhaus spat

Anti-spam organisation may go under if court ruling sticks  11 Oct 2006

Rejection of porn domain sparks legal battle

Firm behind .xxx attacks US Department of Commerce  21 May 2006

Icann approves .tel top level domain

Contract awarded to UK-based Telnic  15 May 2006

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