IPv6 PR machine cranks up

Stuart Corner
Friday, 22 May 2009 10:28

IT Industry - Strategy

The Internet industry has been warning for years that IPv4 addresses are running out and, generally, bemoaning the slow uptake of IPv6. Now action is being taken to accelerate IPv6 adoption with two separate IPv6 promotional initiatives launched in the past week

IPv6 will have several orders of magnitude more addresses available than IPv4, sufficient to give every conceivable device it own unique address. But despite these and other benefits, implementation has been slow.

Earlier this year, a survey of organisations across Asia Pacific, commissioned by APNIC and conducted by KPMG, revealed that nearly two thirds of those surveyed were not adequately prepared for the transition to IPv6. And last November a report from Nemertes Research warned of several serious impending problems with the Internet but held out little hope of IPv6 solving these problems any time soon. It dismissed IPv6 as "too little too late".

This week, in an attempt to crank up the momentum behind IPv6, RIPE NCC, the not-for-profit organisation that supports the infrastructure of the Internet, launched the 'IPv6 Act Now' website www.ipv6actnow.org to "explain the new Internet protocol in terms that everyone can understand," and to "urge adoption of IPv6 by all organisations integral to the Internet's infrastructure."

RIPE NCC says the site is "designed to appeal to everyone with an interest in IPv6, from network engineers to company directors, from law enforcement agencies to government representatives and civil society." It shows support for the RIPE IPv6 position statement from an exhaustive list of high profile technology and telecoms brands and governments alongside commercial and not-for-profit organisations.

According to RIPE NCC, site content will be updated regularly and will include "Expert education, advice and opinion; the latest relevant news stories; written and video content from Internet community leaders; current IPv4 exhaustion/IPv6 uptake statistics, European Commission updates; information on IPv6 distribution policies; and useful links to other sources of IPv6 information.

Separately the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has just launched an IPv6 website www.itu.int/net/ITU-T/ipv6/  to provide information about global activities related to IPv6 so as to raise awareness of IPv6 deployment, as well as provide information on training events being undertaken by organisations in the Internet community.

However Nemertes Research is not the only organisation peddling doom and gloom for the Internet and claiming that a more radical solution than IPv6 must be found. Last month a new body, the Pouzin Society, http://pouzinsociety.org was formed "to provide a forum for developing viable solutions to the current Internet architecture crisis." It claims that the Internet suffers from fundamental scaling problems that will only be exacerbated by IPv6.