This is not related to the .au tld specificly, but I think many of you
will find it very interesting.

Cheers
Craig

____________ Craig Clark ________________ craig§cac.nu ____________ 
      Professional consultant by day, eccentric geek by night!
        What do I do on the weekend?? You don't want to know!
===================================================================  

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Jan 2000 11:40:24 -0500
From: bill§mail.nic.nu
Subject: Announcing .NU Domains using Ö, Ä, Å, Ü, Ñ - And More


Hello;					January 6, 2000

NU domain now has a new, exclusive service available - Support for your local
language character set in any .NU Domain name you have already registered. 

You can pre-register today at http://www.nunames.nu/customers/secure

Technical staff at .NU Domain, working under the guidance of 
Dr. Paul Mockapetris, the inventor of the Internet's Domain Name
System (DNS), are developing an updated version of the DNS software
used on the internet which allows .NU Domain to provide this unique
service. Although the service is in its Beta or early test period, .NU
Domain will now accept pre-registrations of domain names that use
Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, German, French, Spanish and a wide
range of other European character sets in any .NU Domain name.

Examples which we are currently testing include: 
http://SödraKärr.se.nu, http://FöreningsSparbanken.se.nu/, 
http://domän.se.nu and http://tillbehör.se.nu/

For more information on this test, and the current limitations of the service,
please see http://www.nunames.nu/ISO-8859-test.htm 

NU domain is now giving all current customers an advance opportunity 
to pre-register for this service, for a one-time fee of US$35. Since 
the service requires that you already have an "English Alphabet" .NU 
domain name registered and active (using only ASCII characters 
a-z, 0-9), we have decided to postpone public announcement of this
new European character set  service in order to allow our existing
customers to get first choice to pre-register their preferred domain
names using Swedish or other European language characters such as
Ö, Ä, Å, Ü, or Ñ.

To pre-register now, and to qualify to take part in our test of this
unique new service, please go to 
http://www.nunames.nu/customers/secure and log in to modify your
current .NU domain name to add this new service. Current policies 
expect that your pre-registered domain name will be similar to your
current .NU domain name, with the addition of a Swedish or other
language's character(s) (for example, domain.nu and domän.nu).

We will start accepting public registrations for this new service, which 
will require registration of an English alphabet .NU domain name as well,
starting next week (January 10, 2000), on a first-come, first-served basis.

And remember - no other Top Level domain in the world offers
this unique service. So we expect public interest - and registration rates - to
be very strong once we announce the service.

Although we are not yet offering pre-registration for Asian names (using
Japanese, Chinese and other characters) we expect to also support those
language sets in the near future. Customers in Japan may want to contact
NU Certified Registrar, Kurosawa.net, http://www.nihongo.nu, for more
information (email support§kurosawa.net).

If you have any questions about this new service, please contact our
support desk at support§mail.nic.nu or email me directly.

Many thanks for your continuing support for .NU domain!

Bill Semich
President and Founder
NU Domain Ltd
http://whats.nu