KEY POINTS:
A piece of techno-jargon the online community is going to hear plenty about in the next year or two is IPv6.
Internet Protocol Version 6, to give it its full name, is being touted as the saviour as the internet heads for a capacity crunch.
For once it's
not the speed of internet access that's the problem. The issue is overpopulation. The growing number of people connecting more and more PCs and other gadgets is fast using up the available addresses.
More than 1.4 billion people are online and the total is doubling every four or five years. That means the 4 billion addresses available under the reigning 32-bit IPv4 addressing scheme will be taken by 2011, according to an OECD report.
The consequence of that, the OECD says, could be that new internet users or mobile devices will not be able to connect. The OECD and groups involved in internet governance, such as InternetNZ, are therefore urging Governments to take the lead by adopting IPv6.
Some already are. The United States had a deadline of June for every Government agency to make its internet infrastructure IPv6-compatible.
Korea has set a similar goal for public institutions by 2010 and is committed to installing IPv6 equipment in every newly built communications network.
And the Chinese Government has begun rolling out an IPv6 network, called China Next Generation Internet. The Beijing Olympics will be used to test mobile devices and intelligent transport and security systems running on IPv6.
InternetNZ wants our Government to make a formal statement of intent to migrate in the forthcoming Digital Strategy Version 2.0, which is being finalised for release in the next month or so.
"The world is running out of IPv4 space and IPv6 will be the way of the future - there's no doubt about that," says InternetNZ executive director Keith Davidson.
Whereas a typical IPv4 address might be 172.16.254.1, an IPv6 address - 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334 is an example - is much longer, and can have more information encoded in it. According to Davidson, that means an IPv6 address can accommodate not just internet routing details, but is inherently more secure than an IPv4 address.
Aside from the Government, Telecom - as owner of much of the country's telecommunications infrastructure - has a key part to play in the IPv6 migration. Encouragingly, Davidson says, both are "increasingly on side" with the need to make the move. "Progress is coming but it's a little slow."
One reason is cost. While IPv6 compliance has been a standard feature of hardware and software for a number of years - recent Microsoft and Apple operating systems are compliant, for example - there's an inevitable labour cost in moving from IPv4.
According to Jonny Martin, a member of NZNOG, an online forum for network operators, that shouldn't be understated.
"IPv6 proponents will say it doesn't cost a thing but, as with anything when you're running a network, if you change your system there's an associated cost - training people, updating support systems, that sort of thing."
Equally, Martin thinks the claim that IPv6 is more secure than IPv4 is overstated.
While many NZNOG members are apparently sitting on the fence on the issue, the potential for a "land grab" over increasingly scarce IPv4 addresses could spur some action.
Martin foresees problems if the new numbering system isn't widely adopted, with the internet splintering into incompatible IPv4 and IPv6 parts.
For that reason he supports InternetNZ's effort to get the issue on the Government's agenda.
One organisation that doesn't need telling about its significance is APNIC, the Melbourne-based Asia Pacific Network Information Centre, which doles out the region's IP numbers.
The New Zealand internet community will get a sense of how seriously APNIC is taking the issue when the body meets in Christchurch next month.
Davidson wants to organise an IPv6 hui of Government and industry representatives to ride the APNIC meeting's coat-tails, and develop a national IPv6 migration plan.
InternetNZ isn't just talking about migration but, as manager of the .nz domain space, has made its name servers compliant so that IPv6 users can access .nz web addresses.
It has received an allocation ofIPv6 numbers - four billion of them, or about 1000 for every New Zealandcitizen.
If that sounds generous, the 128-bit IPv6 numbering system means there are plenty of addresses to go around - 340 billion billion billion billion, infact.
That makes New Zealand's share look positively stingy. But it should mean a decent amount of headroom for future internet growth.
