Soon Indian Internet service providers and Government agencies will adopt a new Net protocol that will enable creation of trillions of new Internet addresses.
Called Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6), this new protocol will offer improved address space, quality of service and data security capabilities. All Government Web sites would migrate to the new Internet protocol being adopted globally by this year-end.
According to the Department of Telecom, 27 websites have already been brought on IPv6 platform in India. Globally, several companies including Google and Facebook have switched to the new IP version on Wednesday. Indian telecom companies will also move to the new system over the next few months.
“We have already started with less than 10 customers in business-to-business and soon provide in retail segment,” Mr Chandrashekhar Pandhare, General Manager-Technology, Tata Teleservices Ltd, told
New system
The new system is necessary to prevent the Internet running out of available addresses for new devices. India at present has 35 million IPv4 addresses against a user base of about 360 million data users and Government has a target of 160 million and 600 million broadband customers by 2017 and 2020, respectively.
The existing technology IPv4 is already getting choked and expected to run out of space soon as consumers increasingly use broadband and Net services on mobile devices.
Though the end users would not know the difference while browsing the Internet, the shift to IPv6 would help service providers address security concerns raised by intelligence agencies. For instance, in the current system it is possible for multiple users to use the same IP address, which becomes a nightmare for security agencies tracking specific users.
The IPv6 has an in-built security protocol called IPSec, which authenticates and secures all IP data. The data carrying capacity of IPv6 networks is also going to be higher.
More features
This means that more devices with more features will be able to work seamlessly through communication networks. Despite the larger load of information, IPv6 packets are easier to handle and route, just like postcards with pin-codes in their addresses are easier to deliver than those without.
“Our corporate home page is now reachable via IPv6, along with our home networking Web page. Since most of the Internet runs on Cisco products, we look forward to helping customers make IPv6 an integral part of their networks,” Mr Mahesh Gupta, Vice-President, Borderless Network, Cisco India & SAARC, said.
However, there are still some challenges for the service providers to migrate to IPv6 from IPv4 such as cost and infrastructure.
“There are different transition techniques available and every technique has certain impact on user services. Operators shall choose the transition strategy which does not impact customer experience,” Mr Jagbir Singh, Director, Network Services Group, Bharti Airtel.
“The IPv6 platforms do not communicate easily with the IPv4 networks. The idea of abandoning IPv4 and moving to a new protocol is not only redundant, it is also futile, because IPv4 is already running the largest network in human history quite efficiently,” Tata Communications said.
“The translators for IPv4 – IPv6 are still expensive and we need more resources diverted towards making them affordable,” it added.
Companies will need to take a good inventory of their IT resources that are now IPv4, have a phased plan for dual IPv4/ IPv6 support and implement this plan.
Mr Mike Sapien, enterprise telecom analyst at independent research firm Ovum, said Government regulations will also drive this support. “This planning also needs to include third-party partners, resources and links that can be easily overlooked. Now is the time for customers to go beyond planning and get to the test and implement phase,” Mr Sapien of Ovum said.