The European Commission has set a target of getting at least a quarter of EU industry, public authorities and households to switch to IPv6 internet addressing by 2010. A recent report from the OECD had warned that the shortage of older IPv4 internet addressing threatened the rise of mobile internet services.
"This is very much a case of a stitch in time saves nine", said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "In the short term, businesses and public authorities might be tempted to try to squeeze their needs into the strait jacket of the old system, but this would mean Europe is badly placed to take advantage of the latest internet technology, and could face a crisis when the old system runs out of addresses. IPv6 provides more addresses in cyberspace than there are grains of sand on the world's beaches. If Europeans are to use the latest internet devices such as smart tags in shops, factories and airports, intelligent heating and lighting systems that save energy, and in-car networks and navigation systems, then we already face a thousand-fold increase in demand for IP addresses. I call on Member States to make sure that public authorities and industry have IPv6 widely sown up by 2010."
IPv4, used since 1984, provides 4.3 billion addresses, of which only about 700 million or 16% remain free and available for new connections. The new Internet protocol, IPv6, will make an almost unlimited amount of IP-addresses available and so support new applications using devices that are too numerous or costly for IPv4. IPv6 should also encourage more Internet based applications, in particular those based on networking huge numbers of small and simple devices.
Most new computers and servers being sold by major manufacturers are already IPv6 compatible, but are only reachable through their old IPv4 addresses. Europe's 'backbone' Internet network for research "GEANT" is already 100% IPv6 compatible and has led to Europe having the highest take-up of IPv6 addresses of any region in the world. However, this improvement has yet to filter through to the public internet.
Meanwhile, in Japan, NTT (Nippon Telecom and Telegraph) already has a public IPv6 'backbone' and China plans to implement networks that are both IPv4 and IPv6 compatible before the Beijing Olympics. The US government is demanding IPv6 as a requirement for public procurement, but on the ground their internet technology remains similar to that in the EU.
The Commission, in a Communication adopted today, called for Member States to put the European public sector at the forefront of deployment by migrating their own internet networks, public sector websites and eGovernment services to IPv6. The Commission also wants the most important websites of Europe to take the lead and aims to receive commitments from at least 100 top European website operators, such as broadcasters or online news services, before the end of 2008.
The trade group, 3G Americas published an IPv6 transition white paper for mobile network operators earlier this year.
Posted to the site on 27th May 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/31384.php