Internet Technology Has Changed

21/06/2012

IPv4 reaches capacity. Enter IPv6 – a larger, safer platform

The day finally arrived. June 6, 2012 will go down in history as the day on which the Internet changed for ever and started massively using IPv6, a technology that allows increasing the number of devices simultaneously connected to the Internet to 340 trillion trillion trillion.

World IPv6 Launch (http://www.worldipv6launch.org/) is the greatest effort ever made to enable the new network technology. Since that day, thousands of websites are offering their contents and can be accessed through the IPv6 protocol. The most important Internet companies and organizations worldwide (access providers; service providers; hardware, operating systems, and home networking equipment manufacturers) joined the initiative and began using the new Internet protocol, which increases the number of IP (Internet Protocol) addresses to many trillion trillion trillions, as compared to the 4000 million IPv4 addresses which are now almost depleted.

As the successor to the current Internet Protocol (IPv4), global deployment of IPv6 is critical to the Internet’s continued growth as a platform for innovation and economic development.

LACNIC has accompanied this global effort from the beginning, implementing actions in Latin America and the Caribbean aimed at promoting measures at public and private level to achieve an effective adoption of IPv6, such as, among others, training 6000 regional technicians.

The rapid deployment of IPv6 in Latin America and the Caribbean is essential to Internet growth and to connect the 120 million new users expected in the region in the next three years.

Currently, between 15 and 20 million addresses are registered each year in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, there are now less than 60 million available IP version 4 addresses, which would only allow a 10% increase in Internet penetration in the region, said Arturo Servin, Technical Manager at LACNIC.

This is why IPv6 is key not only for new Internet services but also for Internet growth in terms of online users in Latin America and the Caribbean. “I believe we have reached the point where not adopting IPv6 will hold you back and make you lag behind your competitors, that’s what makes the switch to IPv6 even more pressing”, said Arturo, who is convinced that the new protocol “will provide tools for Internet innovation”, something that “has been limited by the shortage of addresses.”