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the Internet in non English-speaking countries. Eventually, an
increased Internet penetration rate in the non English-speaking
countries will follow in the growth of the market by presenting
more opportunities to export the latest technologies.
NLIA also has far-reaching effects on Internet infrastructure
and in other related industries. For instance, NLIA has boosted
e-commerce activities in Korea, which stimulated that country’s
economic growth. In the long run, NLIA will help to develop ICT-
related industries such as software and hardware. NLIA will give
birth to big new enterprises in much the same way as domain
name-related industries have done in the past (e.g. Microsoft,
eBay, Yahoo, Google, Amazon and Hewlett-Packard). This will
present further opportunity to increase the number of Internet
users worldwide. It is therefore in the best interests of govern-
ments around the world to adopt NLIA, to enable national growth
and empowerment.
Preparing for the future with NLIA
Today’s Information Society is rapidly moving towards the IPv6-
based next-generation Internet and ubiquitous environment, further
emphasizing the need for the implementation of the NLIA system.
In the future, when everybody has an IP address and all electronic
equipment is controlled using IP addresses, assigning complex
English domain names to all equipment will be impossible.
Therefore, Netpia’s NLIA system, which allows the free use of ‘real’
offline names, has been catching the public eye as the key alter-
native that will guide users in the Information Society of the future.
NLIA is an Internet address that is easy to remember and
convenient to use. The system has been leading the way to trans-
forming the computer-oriented Internet address system into a
human-oriented one, and which can enable people around the
world in the ubiquitous computing era to use native language
Internet addresses in a convenient manner. The Internet is no
longer a sanctuary for the privileged few, for one particular
language, or for one culture.
Netpia is dedicated to providing user-friendly, intuitive
Internet access through the NLIA system, and takes pride in
being part of the global effort to bridge the digital divide caused
by the language barrier. As Director Houlin Zhao of the ITU
Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) stated:
“Innovation like NLIA can certainly introduce greater fuel to
the global ICT services. To enable people to use their own
language to access the Internet is fundamentally an act of
defending human dignity and equality. To promote the NLIA
will eventually contribute to the global efforts to bridge the
digital divide. The world will have to take action to support the
needs of developing countries in this respect. I hope the busi-
ness community will follow Netpia to work on this issue.” NLIA,
which combines real names and cyber identities, will take its
place as a standard in the next generation of the Internet as well
as the ubiquitous age.
Her Royal Highness the Princess Maha Chkri Sirindhorn of Thailand visited Netpia head office (Seoul, Korea, October 2004)
The Turkish Internet Address service has been launched
(Istanbul, Turkey, July 2005)