IPv6 Act Now

Lorenzo Colitti, a Google IPv6 network engineer (Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET)

SAN FRANCISCO–Although it’s been hard for companies to financially justify the expense of embracing the next-generation standard for wiring together the Internet, the incentives are now arriving–and Google itself stands to benefit from the resulting democratization of networking.

Google thinks the time is ripe to begin adopting Internet Protocol version 6. The search giant, which handles gargantuan amounts of traffic, has gradually been making more of its Web properties available over IPv6, which despite being defined for more than a decade still is rare compared to the current IPv4.

The company has been gradually making its properties available over the new standard, starting with an IPv6 access to its search engine in March 2008. The range of other Google properties similarly available expanded to include Google Maps last week, said Lorenzo Colitti, a Google network engineer who spoke Wednesday at a Internet Society panel discussion at an Internet Engineering Task Force meeting here.

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Telecoms giant names 29 exchanges due for “fibre to the cabinet” upgrade to go live in 2010

BT is to install “super-fast” broadband systems able to provide internet connections running at up to 60 megabits per second – nearly eight times faster than the current maximum on phone lines – at 29 exchanges in Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Greater Manchester.

The installations by BT’s Openreach division, which looks after the telephone network, will go live early next year – but it will be up to telephone and internet service providers such as BT’s own Retail division to come up with services using the high-speed connections and persuade customers to pay for them.

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Actually, we don’t have that video of Vint yet, so here’s a very popular video called “Where the hell is Matt?”

Business incentives are completely lacking today for upgrading to IPv6, the next generation Internet protocol, according to a survey of network operators conducted by the Internet Society (ISOC).

In a new report, ISOC says that ISPs, enterprises and network equipment vendors report that there are “no concrete business drivers for IPv6.”

However, survey respondents said customer demand for IPv6 is on the rise and that they are planning or deploying IPv6 because they feel it is the next major development in the evolution of the Internet.

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Industry Experts Discuss the Vital Significance and Critical Issues Highlighted in a Newly-Released IPv6 Report Surrounding the Future of the Internet

WASHINGTON, March 19 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A panel of experts from industry and other Internet thought leaders will convene next week to discuss the pressing need to adopt Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) to ensure the continued growth of the Internet as a platform for innovation. The Internet Society, a nonprofit organization that provides leadership, vision and valued expertise in addressing issues that impact the future of the Internet, is sponsoring the panel in conjunction with a meeting of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), the Internet’s premier technical standards body.

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You might not have noticed it, but the World Wide Web turned 20 years old last week.

It seems as if it has been ingrained in our lives forever, but the Internet Society held a quiet celebration in Geneva, Switzerland, last week to honor Tim Berners-Lee on the anniversary of his proposal for a technology to save and access vast amounts of data.

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The next big step will be the move to the next generation of Internet Protocols, IPv6, Daigle said. Although adoption of IPv6 so far has been slow, Daigle said it is mirroring the adoption of the current IPv4.

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The EU, among others, is adamant that organisations can ill afford to delay migration to IPv6, yet the rate of uptake remains achingly slow. Martin Courtney examines why IT departments are still dragging their heels.

Nearly a year after the European Union (EU) urged business leaders to embrace version six of the Internet Protocol (IPv6), with alarming warnings that internet addresses were about to run out ­ – and more than 10 years since it was standardised ­ – IPv6 accounts for less than one per cent of internet traffic.

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