Bangladesh gets dot bangla domain

The International Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICAAN) has officially allotted the much awaited dot bangla (.bangla) internet domain to Bangladesh.

Indian state of West Bengal and the West African nation of Sierra Leone, whose one of the official languages is Bangla, had also applied for the internationalized domain name (IDN) label-dot bangla.

The domain was unlocked for the people on Saturday as Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated it in a function at her official Ganabhaban residence in the city, reports the Dhaka Tribune.

State-owned Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Limited (BTCL), the assigned organisation to handle the domain, has completed preparations to start distribution of dot bangla domain among the users after it has been officially allotted to Bangladesh on October 4 after a long process.

After getting the right, State Minister for Posts and Telecommunications Tarana Halim had said that they want to unlock it for the people in the month of victory, as the country attained independence on December 16.

Officials said the BTCL would call for application for the domain. They said customer could complete all procedures for .bangla through online while registration fee would be received using state-owned mobile phone operator Teletalk.

Earlier, ICANN-approved another domain label for Bangladesh as dot bd or .bd. From now on, .bangla is Bangladesh's own Unicode domain label.

It is the second country code top-level domain (TLD) for Bangla websites.