Why you can't Register some "Available" .TEL domains !

Several forum members have reported recently that despite some .TEL domains showing up as "Available" on a Whois search they can't register them as their Registrar says they are NOT available, totally contradicting the Whois display !

Mystery is now solved - Telnic have no doubt kept back some premium unregistered domain names (as they are entitled to do AFAIK) but they have also been accumulating some premium domain names that users have allowed to drop.

I know the latter from personal experience, having attempted recently to re-register a domain name I let drop some time ago (before the 13 March 2017 relaunch was known about) where the Whois said it was still available but Name.com said it was already taken.

The email that came out today explains all:

Premium Names

Telnic is planning to release its premium name portfolio for public registration in the summer of 2017. The release will include a wide range of great names so watch out for details on this from your domain provider.

The prices fetched by Telnic's Summer 2017 Premium Name Sale will be of interest to many of us !

http://MikeSeaton.tel

Telnic is searching desperately for some sources of income.

Good news for .tel domainers:
They can buy their previously owned domains for a much higher price once again.

x1y2 wrote:Telnic is searching desperately for some sources of income.

Good news for .tel domainers:
They can buy their previously owned domains for a much higher price once again.

name.com had the same idea a few years ago.

Later, name.com gave up this plan:

http://www.tel.community/t1347-name-com-is-giving-its-premium-domains-away-for-free

Telnic had a lot of TELs - like this one ring_tel. They also had two-letters TELs which were the same as existing country extentions, like this ones: co_tel, de_tel and etc.

But Whois there was correctly shown and they did not hided it.

Now, if we allow that those "strange" TELs with non-existing Whois belong to them, then what is the sence of that? They, as Telnic LTD, could do this legally and openly and without any tricks.

As for the idea of selling their "premium TELs" during possible coming of a mass drop, I think they would do much better if they would do this during the peak of mass-regs, and not during the opposite situation.