ICANN says your home network could soon get a new and simpler name
ICANN, the Internet umbrella organization for assigning names and numbers, suggests a change which could simplify the way to access your home, internal network. This means that instead of using the address 192.168.xx to configure your router, you should just type .internal.
As emphasized in the article The RegisterICANN's Security and Stability Committee (SSAC) first recognized the need to reserve a top-level domain for private networks in 2020, but not necessarily to facilitate router connectivity.
ICANN chose between 35 domains
SSAC wants the new .internal domain to prevent private domain naming schemes from clashing with other networks. Currently, SSAC claims that “informal use of top-level domains,” such as the .dlink domain used by networking equipment company D-Link, “has the potential to conflict with the root zone or other specified purposes.”
TP-LinkICANN initially considered a total of 35 different strings, but eventually narrowed it down to “.internal” or “.private”. The organization ultimately decided on .internal, because it determined that .private “may carry the unintended suggestion of privacy to a greater extent.
It's not yet known exactly how the .internal domain will be structured to configure your router or other devices on your home network, but more details should be available in the coming weeks.
For now, you can still access your router via the address 192.168.xx ICANN is collecting public comments and will soon decide how to proceed.