IPv6 Act Now

TOKYO, Dec 21, 2009 (The Yomiuri Shimbun – McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — The trading of Internet Protocol addresses is expected to be permitted here by the end of next year as a measure against a possible worldwide shortage of IP addresses within the next two years, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

By allowing IP addresses to be traded, the industry is hoping that addresses currently going unused will be brought back into the fold.

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Australian ISPs have been branded “a timid lot” for their tardiness in providing support for the new Internet address protocol IPv6, soon to be essential as the IPv4 address space becomes exhausted.

Writing in the latest edition of his organisation’s newsletter, ‘The Standard’, Michael Biber, professional services manager at IPv6 consultancy IPv6Now, notes that only seven percent of Australia’s Autonomous Systems are IPv6 ready, and he contrasts this with New Zealand at 18 percent and with Jersey, Cuba and Vatican City all of which, he says have between 50 percent and 100 percent IPv6 capability, although he does acknowledge that this may be due to them having few autonomous systems (essentially a group of Internet routers under common administrative or technical control).

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According to reports, China Telecom has announced a complete schedule of IPv6 deployment including commercial trials currently underway. A full commercial launch is scheduled for 2012 while retreating from IPv4 network and services will begin in 2015. China Telecom has also announced various goals as part of the IPv6 transition which includes building a self-supporting IPv6 business and upgrading enterprise and residential gateways to support IPv6 access for government, enterprise and residential customers.

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Think back ten years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 11,500; Comcast was purchasing Lenfest and Prime Cable; and IT departments around the world were feverishly preparing for the transition to the year 2000 (Y2K).

Remember Y2K? That was the “millennium bug” that resulted from the practice of shortening a four-digit year to two digits. It created a lot of panic—and revenue for companies that offered solutions to a problem that was likely overstated.

Today’s Y2K is the transition from IPv4 to IPv6, although insiders bristle at that comparison. The big difference is that this transition has no hard stop.

More from Communications Technology…

The American Registry for Internet Numbers says that IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) addresses—all 4,294,967,296 of them—will run out sometime in 2012. Will that mark the end of the Internet as we know it? Hardly.

Organizations are already in the process of getting ready to roll over to a new addressing scheme, Internet Protocol version 6. Is your enterprise prepared?

More from Processor…

Predicting what will happen in the next decade of communications technology is complicated, primarily because the subject matter has become so integral to other technologies.

The idea of pervasive IP — or ubiquitous computing, the internet of things or hyperconnectivity — will transform the way we live and work. Just as the smartphone has given us portable, powerful connectivity, pervasive IP will mean internet connectivity embedded into everyday objects — some portable, some fixed.

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TMCnet has taken a hard look at IPv6, a next generation Internet Protocol that will open up infinitely more IP addresses than the current protocol, IPv4.

We’ve talked about why businesses should care about that change, and we’ve talked to officials with one of the Tier 1 operators that’s helping lead the way toward a smooth, effective transition, NTT America.

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Will IPv6 finally arrive stateside in 2010? That’s the question U.S. ISPs and network equipment vendors are asking themselves after seeing a rise in IPv6 activity during the last six months of 2009.

IPv6 vs. IPv4

The Internet engineering community has been waiting a decade for widespread adoption and deployment of IPv6, an upgrade to the Internet’s main communications protocol known as IPv4.

More from Network World…

Fremont, Calif-based Hurricane Electric, the world’s leading IPv6-native Internet backbone and colocation provider, today announced that its Director of IPv6 Strategy, Martin Levy, will speak at the India IPv6 Summit today, December 15, 2009 in a talk entitled IPv6 on the Internet – how far have we come towards global IPv6 connectivity? The summit is being sponsored by the IPv6 Forum India, an organization dedicated to bringing awareness of IPv6 to India, encouraging IPv6’s widespread deployment and building an active IPv6 community within India.

“IPv6 Forum India has been instrumental to bringing awareness of IPv6 not only to India, but the world,” said Martin Levy, Hurricane Electric’s Director of IPv6 Strategy. “I am honored to address the summit and look forward to sharing a global progress report on IPv6 connectivity.” Hurricane Electric first deployed IPv6 on its global backbone in 2001, and the company now interconnects with more than 600 associated IPv6 backbones – approximately twice as many as its nearest rival. Hurricane Electric is one of the few global Internet backbones that is IPv6 native and does not rely on internal tunnels for its IPv6 connectivity. IPv6 at Hurricane Electric is a core service and every customer is provided IPv6 connectivity as well as classic IPv4 connectivity.

More from CNBC…

The RIPE Labs website features an interview with Alain Durand at the recent IETF 74 meeting. Alain discusses the type of IPv6 measurements he is doing at Comcast, together with the University of Pennsylvania.

Read the full interview at RIPE Labs.