(Editor’s Note: Over the next several weeks, TMCnet will examine the next generation Internet Protocol standard, “IPv6” – the transition to it, its advantages over IPv4, why companies should care about it and what experts from one company, NTT America (News - Alert), have to say about the way IPv6 is being addressed in different nations around the world. What follows is Part 2 of our series.)
First, we talked about why companies should care about IPv6, a next generation Internet Protocol that will open up more IP addresses than the current protocol, IPv4.
The transition to IPv6 is a complex, messy task that everyone including network operators, equipment makers, content providers, businesses and even consumers will have to work on together – and the U.S. government and Tier 1 network operators are helping lead the way.
Among them is NTT America -- the Americas division of Japan-based NTT communications and one of the largest Tier 1 network operators in the world. The company operates the world’s largest Tier 1 IPv6 backbone, spanning Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. This global backbone has been fully upgraded to run “dual stack” -- meaning it supports both IPv4 and IPv6.
“We’re a world leader in IPv6,” said Christopher Davis (News - Alert), director of marketing for the NTT Communications Global IP Network, in an interview with TMCnet. “You could get a GigE or a 10GigE IPv6 or dual stack connection from us before any of the other major providers.”
As Davis explained, NTT America (and its parent company, NTT Communications (News - Alert)) has been involved in the development and implementation of IPv6 since 1996, when NTT Com built one of the first IPv6 test networks, which was interconnected, or “peered,” with other IPv6 networks.
“We have been very involved in technology development and adoption,” Davis said, adding that the company is an early member of the IPv6 Forum, which was founded in 1999 by the IETF Deployment Work Group to help drive IPv6 deployment worldwide. “It was around 2001 when we made IPv6 first commercially available – and by 2004 it was available globally everywhere on our network.”
While other Tier 1 operators – such as Global Crossing (News - Alert) and Level3 -- also offer IPv6 support, “they don’t have as many years dealing with it as we do,” Davis said. “We have a lot more customers who have purchased dual stack connections -- not just in the U.S., but globally -- and we have a lot more IPv6 installations, especially in Japan. Japan has a lot more products on the market that support IPv6 for both businesses and consumers.”
And with NTT America’s roots going back to Japan-based NTT Communications and its nearly 50-year history as the largest telephone service provider (and the largest network operator) in Japan, where IPv6 is widely deployed, it’s of little surprise the company is a leader in offering IPv6 connectivity.
“I think NTT Com as a whole has more product offerings utilizing IPv6 than our competitors,” Davis said, “for example, we have an IPTV system, which is kind of a re-broadcast system, that is over IPv6; we have smart building systems that are IPv6-based; plus we have an early warning earthquake detection and alert system that is IPv6 based. This is all in addition to the internet backbone access provided by us to our large content providers and service provider customers. So I think we have some other capabilities and experiences that our competitors don’t have.”
“When people talk about IPv6, it’s not a matter of if we’re going to make the switch or not, it’s a matter of when,” Davis said. There’s no question IPv4 addresses are running out – this is not just an opinion. The IETF and the IEEE have empirical data to prove it.”
But how one deals with the problem of IPv4 address exhaustion, he said, “now that is a matter of opinion.”
“It’s almost more of a religious battle,” Davis explained. “There are people out there saying carrier grade NAT can solve the problem -- but then you have a lot of carriers out there saying, ‘well, I’m not going to spend the kind of money on that, and not get the performance I want – because it’s more nodes in the network – and there can be a degradation in performance.’”
The other problem – especially for U.S. companies – is that IPv6 adoption is only going to accelerate in countries with higher populations, i.e. where it is more needed. Soon, whole blocks of users in these countries will only be using IPv6 to access the Internet. So, if your company’s mail server and web site only support IPv4, companies in these more densely populated areas will not be able to communicate with you.
“There are a lot of initiatives going on around the world – Australia, New Zealand, China, India, Korea, Japan, Sweden, Germany – there are countries that have incredibly advanced IPv6 plans either in place or in progress,” Davis said. “This is not something where the U.S. should take a wait-and-see attitude. Part of the strength in the U.S. has been our technological advantage and ability to pioneer new technologies and use them to our advantage. And IPv6 is one that has been slipping away. I’ll admit there have been many improvements – AT&T, Global Crossing, Level 3 –the other major carriers have deployed it in their networks – and we have a lot of dual stack customers in the US. The transition has to begin with the infrastructure providers, of course -- and you have institutional bodies such as ARIN that are making stronger and stronger calls to action for the implementation of dual stack networks.”
One thing that seems certain is that the mobile industry will be a primary catalyst for the widespread adoption of IPv6. Cellular telephone systems present a large deployment field for IP devices as mobile telephone service is being transitioned from 3G systems to next-generation 4G technologies (LTE, WiMAX (News - Alert)), in which voice is provisioned as a VoIP service. Verizon, for example, has released technical specifications for devices operating on its future networks. The specification mandates IPv6 operation according to the 3GPP Release 8 Specifications (March 2009) and deprecates IPv4 as an optional capability.
Being able to assign a single IP address to every mobile device on a wireless network will give mobile operators unprecedented control over service quality, security and the types of services they’ll be able to deliver, not to mention new capabilities in customer self-provisioning.
“I think mobile is definitely going to be a huge contributor to the transition,” Davis said. “The mobile providers are doing a lot of testing with IPv6 – they’re seeing how it works on their networks.” He said Nokia recently did a study on how IPv6 on a mobile network can actually conserve battery power on a mobile device – because the mobile device no longer needs to send repeated “keep alive” messages in order to keep a session going.
Patrick Barnard is a senior Web editor for TMCnet, covering call and contact center technologies. He also compiles and regularly contributes to TMCnet e-Newsletters in the areas of robotics, IT, M2M, OCS and customer interaction solutions. To read more of Patrick's articles, please visit his columnist page.Edited by Marisa Torrieri