New Delhi, June 2: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India wants more Indian websites to shed their dotcom identities. But .in, the desi alternative to .com, has not caught on.

TRAI has written to the government suggesting ways to draw more Internet service providers (ISPs) to Nixi or the National Internet Exchange of India.

Connecting with Nixi gets a site a web address ending with .in.

“It has been observed that a limited number of ISPs have joined Nixi, resulting in sub-optimal utilisation of Nixi’s infrastructure,” said the TRAI letter sent this week to the department of information technology.

Nixi was set up by the government to do away with the need to route domestic Internet traffic all the way to the US, or elsewhere abroad, and then back home, when it could be directed through exchanges within the country.

This would make Internet cheaper and better for Indians.

But TRAI feels Nixi is not effective enough. To begin with, all four Nixi nodes are standalone.

In the letter, the telecom regulator has suggested that they be connected to each other and that ISPs be asked to bring all their traffic ? not just a part ? to Nixi.

Besides, the letter says, four Nixi nodes are not enough. TRAI has asked the government to consider setting up nodes in all state capitals.