State minister for posts and communications Tarana Halim has said the dot bangla (.bangla) domain will be formally launched on December 16.
Once launched, the people of the country can use Bangla language to enter and browse internet, she said during a press briefing at the Secretariat on Tuesday.
The domain will play a special role in introducing Bengali at all levels as well as increasing the use of Bengali script in the internet, the state minister said.
Before launching the service there is some work to be done including setting terms and conditions to fix rates for using the dot bangla (.bangla) domain, making a policy and recruiting manpower, which will be completed within December 16, she added.
On December 20, 2010, Bangladesh Telecommunication and Regulatory Commission in coordination with Bangla Academy sent an application to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers for dot bangla (.bangla) domain, to express its identity internationally.
Last June, state minister for posts and communications Tarana Halim sent a letter to ICANN and the United States Department of Commerce to expedite the root zone delegation process for using .bangla domain, following which the ICANN announced allotting dot bangla (.bangla) domain in favour of Bangladesh on October 4.
According to wikipedia, dot bangla (.bangla) domain is a coming secondary Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for Bangladesh. This domain is meant for web addresses in the Bengali language. It is administered by the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications and Information Technology.