The battle is underway between internet service providers across the world to win the rights to manage one of several domain names being introduced to rival .com.

Among the bidders, two consortia are battling to run .pro, a top level domain for professionals and businesses, while a 19-strong international coalition called Afilias is bidding to administer .web, .info and .site.

These proposals follow a meeting in July, where the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), the non-profit organisation which manages the web's domain name system, agreed to expand the domain name system beyond the existing seven suffixes - .com, .org, .net, .edu, int, .mil and .gov.

RegistryPro, a joint venture between UK firm Virtual Internet and US registrar Register.com, is going head to head with the dotPro consortium, which includes the .TV Corporation, Lycos, SK Telecom, and 7DC of Korea and OnlineNIC of China.

RegistryPro's plans include the creation of three initial sub-domains - .med.pro, .law.pro and .cpa.pro - dedicated to the medical, legal and accounting professions respectively. Should RegistryPro win, it plans to start registering names by next summer.

Individuals or companies looking to register .pro domain names would have to prove they have professional credentials, awarded by a recognised national association, such as the British Medical Association in the UK.

While this would mean domain registrations taking longer to process, RegistryPro is confident that it could process applications within inside 72 hours. This delay would eventually be eradicated with online applications, secured using software from Baltimore Technologies.

Tom Turcan, chief operating officer at Virtual Internet, told vnunet.com: "Individuals and business will only register .pro if they perceive added value. By restricting the extension to qualified professionals, customers can have confidence not previously possible that .pro is the way for professionals to identify themselves on the internet."

Although proposals to expand the system have often surfaced since the late 80s as fears grow that the number of easy to remember names is running out, they have often been sunk by a lack of commercial, home user and international consensus.

This changed in July with Icann's decision to impose a formal structure to create more extensions, asking registrars to lodge a $50,000 deposit along with their suggestions by 1am (BST) Tuesday.

In all, almost 200 new extensions have been suggested, although only a few are likely to make it past the next stage of the process, to be announced on 20 November.