What's in a name? To a tiny nation in the South Pacific, plenty. The country is Tuvalu in the South Pacific: nine low-lying islands 1,000 km north of Fiji that make up one of the world's smallest, most isolated and most densely populated countries. Largely unknown to tourists, Tuvalu and its 10,500 people suffer from underdevelopment and a lack of jobs. Other than fishing, people get by harvesting coconuts - pretty much the only thing the soil will grow. But Tuvalu has one valuable asset: its coveted domain name - dot tv. In 1999 the prime minister determined to capitalize on this by selling the name to a Los Angeles dot.com company - in exchange for several million dollars and access to the new wired-up world.

Ted Hong, Marketing Director of the DotTV Corporation, explains that Tuvalu's 'tv' domain name is like the 'uk' suffix for the United Kingdom or the 'nl' in Holland - except that there is a huge demand for certain domain names, and 'tv' is one of them. And as a tiny country, Tuvalu does not need many domain names. "Even if every citizen in Tuvalu had their own domain name there would still be the opportunity for dotTV to sell literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of domain names out there ending in dotTV. And that's really our core business is that we sell these top level domain names to anyone who wants to buy it all over the world."

The deal is that Tuvalu receives $50 million over the first 10 years, plus a double-digit stake in the company and a seat on the board. So the country should continue to benefit after the first 10 years is up.

Most people on Tuvalu are fishermen, but there aren't enough fishermen for all the fish available, so the government sells fishing licences to rich nations - a major source of income. One of the few professionals on Tuvalu is television producer, Iakopo Molotii. "On Tuvalu we have three kinds of people: poor people, less poor people and the government. Almost everyone who has a job works for the government. . ." The government is on Funafuti, the capital island where 70% of the population now lives, but which doesn't have an adequate infrastructure. So in its own small way, the country has an urbanisation problem.

Iakopo Molitii

At present, the country only has 130 telephone lines. Koloa Talake, the adviser to the prime minister who is a director of DotTV, is one of the few people who has a computer - but he still has problems sending an email. Tuavai Halo is running a computer school. She says all her graduates get jobs straightaway. "The first girl to start this school, she is working in the parliament. The other one there in the island council, and the other offices are full of my students." But those who have computers sometimes have problems with power failures. Koloa Talake says they are looking at alternative energy sources - like using coconut oil instead of diesel.

But what happens to the money from DotTV? Essela Natano, one of only two doctors on Tuvalu, says he hasn't seen any of it. Yet Tuvalu has one of the highest child mortality rates in the Pacific, and its single hospital badly needs investment for new equipment and drugs. Government Secretary Saufatu Sopoanga says that the new financial resources are being managed very prudently, and annual budgets set at a "sustainable" level. Iakopo tells the fishermen they can apply for grants to build better buildings, or buy TVs - but they seem happy as they are.

VSO volunteer Richard Humphrey, who's working on improving the airport landing strip, thinks the problem may be that if they spend the money, "then the aid money that presently comes in will probably stop flowing because once this becomes a developed country there's no need to pour aid into it". Before 1999 Tuvalu's main source of income was international aid.

And there are still questions about how safe incomes from Internet businesses will be in the future. Ted Hong agrees there is a theoretical risk, but points out that Tuvalu has already expanded its capital infrastructure and that they have "begun building things that would expand their entire revenue base," so this way their risks are diversified.

Winning the lottery changes your life forever. Tuvalu almost seems a reluctant winner.

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