IPv6 growth rises 300pc in two years

IPv6

IPv6 growth rises 300pc in two years

India and other developing economies at the forefront in demanding IPv6

Thursday, December 04, 2008

HYDERABAD, INDIA, Internet Governance Forum : The Number Resource Organization (NRO), which is made up of the five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs), announces today that the rate of new entrants into the IPv6 routing system has increased by approximately 300 percent over the past two years.

This growth has been helped by the active promotion of IPv6 by the five RIRs and their communities; and developing economies, such as India, are playing an increasingly important role in generating demand for global IPv6 deployment.

"What we are now seeing is an acceleration in IPv6 activity on the Internet, clearly indicating the start of production deployment in many parts if the world," says Paul Wilson, Chair of the NRO. "We are also seeing a rapid increase in allocation of IPv6 addresses, reflecting an increasing readiness for imminent deployment. These developments are due to the work of all global stakeholders in assembling the resources necessary for IPv6 adoption."

He adds: "For those yet to deploy, there is still time for a planned and cost-efficient transition to IPv6. The fact that we have not seen this so far is a conscious decision by parts of the industry rather than a failure on anyone's part, but the time for active planning is now."

Adiel Akplogan, AfriNIC CEO, comments: "Just as many developing economies have leapfrogged the extensive wired telephone network with wireless, new networks and developing economies can bypass IPv4-only networks. Instead, they can incorporate IPv6 from the start, avoiding much of the transition cost. It is essential, however, that equipment vendors provide IPv6 upgrades and functionality at minimal extra cost, and that those whose products do not yet provide IPv6 support should develop upgrades without delay."

The RIRs work together at global and regional levels to promote transition to IPv6 and prepare strategies to manage the distribution of the remaining unallocated pool of IPv4. The open, multi-stakeholder approach of the RIRs has enabled the recent adoption of a global policy for the allocation of the remaining IPv4 address space. It guarantees that each RIR receives one of the last five blocks of IPv4 address space.

The policy originated from the two RIR communities with the greatest percentage of developing economies, AfriNIC and LACNIC, and reflects the need for developing economies to have access to the remaining IPv4 addresses as their networks mature.

The NRO is advising participants at the IGF that Internet stakeholders, including governments, vendors, enterprises, telecoms operators and end-users, have a role to play in IPv6 transition, and is encouraging the following actions:

* The business sector should start to support IPv6 by hosting content on IPv6-enabled websites, ensuring accessibility to IPv6 users.
* Software and hardware vendors should implement IPv6 support in their products urgently, to ensure they are available at production
standard when needed.
* Governments should learn more about IPv6 transition issues in order to support IPv6 deployment efforts in their countries. IPv6 requirements in government procurement policies are critical at this time.
* Finally, civil society, including organisations and end users, should request IPv6 services from their ISPs and vendors, to build demand and ensure competitive availability of IPv6 services in coming years.

The NRO is proud to be releasing this statement in India, host to IGF 2008 and one of the fastest growing Internet communities in the world.

As well as contributing to regional and global discussions and activities to address IPv4 exhaustion and the transition to IPv6, Indian stakeholders sit on the APNIC Executive Council, and represent the Asia Pacific IP addressing community on the global NRO Number Council.

NRO representatives will be speaking at two major sessions on Critical Internet Resources at IGF 2008 in Hyderabad on December 5.

©CIOL Bureau