Telnic proposed an addition to root level domains six years back, in order to get .tel approved, primarily for use in organizing Internet communications. ICANN has now approved the proposition, moving .tel into the official scope. Telnic is pretty excited about this, and is quite apparent about their intentions:

"The days of needing to remember several telephone numbers, numerous VoIP or instant message identities and other points of contact for our social and professional networks are over. By leveraging innovative DNS (Domain Name System) technology, the .tel domain will allow anyone to publish and control, in real time, how they can be reached," Mahdavi said.
Telnic has particular plans for .tel that go beyond simple communication, such as turning all communication for a particular business or individual into a single unified name. It definitely sounds like a novel idea, but I wonder how businesses will react that idea. You can learn more about Telnic at telname.com