Internet Governance and Critical Internet Resources: Peru Leads IPv6 Deployment in Latin America

09/07/2013

Thanks to the commitment of the country’s operators, Peru is the regional leader in terms of deployment of IPv6, the new Internet protocol. Close to 200 000 fixed broadband users in Peru can already use the new IP protocol to access content from relevant portals such as Google, YouTube, Facebook and Wikipedia while simultaneously keeping their legacy IPv4 addresses for services not yet upgraded to the new Internet.

Peru’s leading position comes thanks to Telefonica’s strategic decision to move forward with a massive deployment of the new IPv6 protocol for the company’s customers. According to Telefonica, the Peruvian experience will serve as a point of reference for the company’s future deployments in other countries and world markets.

According to data provided by Telefonica, almost 2% of all connections to Google services originating in Peru are now made exclusively over IPv6, well over the 1% threshold set by the Internet Society during World IPv6 Launch Day. According to the website set up to track World IPv6 Launch Day, these figures mean that Telefonica Peru is now ranked number eleven in terms of the amount of IPv6 traffic it contributes to the most important websites.

These 200 000 Peruvian IPv6-enabled broadband users represent the first phase of Telefonica’s plan for fixed residential Internet customers. The company is now working towards bringing the rest of its customers into the new Internet era. Telefonica is also planning to activate native IPv6 services for mobile broadband users and corporate clients.

Besides acquiring experience and know-how that will allow the company to deploy IPv6 for its customers in other countries, this milestone Peru has reached is of particular importance as it means that now Telefonica Peru and Telefonica Wholesale (TIWS) are carrying a sizeable amount of IPv6 traffic from real-world users. Carlos Ralli, part of Telefonica R+D and one of the main proponents of IPv6 in Peru, noted that this will lead to improved operational practices for the new protocol.

Telefonica has been working on the transition to IPv6 since 1999, when the first IPv6 network and services trial was run within the framework of an international research project. In 2012, Telefonica decided to join the World IPv6 Launch initiative, through which the Internet’s major portals committed to offering their content over IPv6 and various operators agreed to start deploying IPv6 for end users.