Sound the alarm, IPv6 execs say

by Steven Schwankert

April 16, 2008 —

The sky is falling on the number of global IP (Internet Protocol) addresses,
and IPv6 (Internet
Protocol version 6) is the solution, executives from major technology companies
said Wednesday.

The exhaustion of available IP addresses using IPv4 (IP version 4) brought
out the alarmist side of many industry executives. "It's a crisis -- not
a market-oriented event," said Akinori Maemora, chairman of APNIC
(Asia Pacific Network Information Centre), speaking at the Global
IPv6 Summit in Beijing. "We have just three years until IPv4 addresses
are depleted. These changes will come suddenly," he said.

The telecommunications industry is going through "a period of grief"
over the end of IPv4 (IP version 4) said Tony Hain, IPv6 technical leader for
Cisco Systems. "Most
people in the world are still in a state of denial" about upgrading to
IPv6. "No one will ask for IPv6 until they run out of IPv4 addresses,"
he said.

IP addresses allow individual devices, including computers, laptops and mobile
handsets to connect to the Internet. Using the current IPv4 system, which offers
a total of about 4.7 billion possible IP addresses, some countries, including
China, will begin to run out of addresses they can allocate around 2010, according
to estimates by the Internet
Assigned Numbers Authority and the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

By switching to IPv6, the number of possible addresses increases by billions
more. This would also allow a far greater number of devices to connect, allowing
features like the Internet-based remote control of security cameras, and even
turning on home appliances from one's desktop at work.

With IPv6 therefore not an "if" but a "when," technology
managers should "roll out applications for IPv6 today," said Sandeep
K. Singhal, Microsoft's
director of Windows networking. Microsoft used a phased approach to its own
implementation of native and dual-stack IPv6 use, and Singhal urged other companies
to do the same. "Don't simply wait until IPv6 is out there; start early
and start learning."

One barrier to early IPv6 adoption is that intermediate measures, such as NAT
(Network Address Translator), have been very effective. "NAT has worked
too well to give over business to IPv6," said APNIC's Maemora. IPv6 deployments
are being deferred due to short-term business pressures, he said. However, NAT
is not a panacea, as servers cannot be connected using it.

China has one of the world's largest IPv6 networks, but currently only a fraction
of that capacity is used, and only for academic and research institutes. Although
China, now the world's largest Internet user market, will feel the address crunch
earlier than other major markets, there is no timetable for a move to IPv6.
"The industry in China is not perfect," said Mao Wei, director of
the China Internet Network Information Centre, a quasi-governmental Internet
overseer. "Right now there is no mechanism to switch over to IPv6, nor
do we know who will issue that order, which department?"

IDG News Service