February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The consortium is called Eureto and is chaired by Paul Kavanagh, a business man, as well as Sean Donlon, the former Irish ambassador to the U.S.; Dick Spring, former Labor Party leader, and David Andrews, the former foreign minister.
Eureto would be based in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal, and so far both the Irish government and the Northern Irish government have backed the bid.
The contract would require more than 200 highly trained staff with multilingual skills.
An Internet domain name such as “.com” or “.org” has to be managed for reasons of copyright.
Domain administration typically requires resolving legal questions over trademark ownership, cybersquatting (third-party registration of a name generally identified with an existing company or individual) and other identity issues.
Some domain names such as “.mil” are off-limits to the public, existing only as secret U.S. military websites.
Kavanagh told reports: “From the country’s point of view, this would be hugely prestigious.”
Two networks would be set up, he explained, on in Donegal and another in Derry. The Derry site would act as back-up if the other network failed.
The bid relies on the completion of the government’s plan to circle Letterkenny with a state-of-the-art high-speed fiber-optic broadband cable service.
Other bids may come from Switzerland, France, and a joint grouping of Britain and Luxembourg. The deadline is Oct. 25.