Government joins IPv6 adoption chorus

The government has backed calls for companies to start adopting IPv6 address spaces at the launch of 6UK, a new organisation designed to help businesses on this path.

David Hendon, information economy director at the Department for Business and Innovation, said that companies risk falling behind if they fail to adopt the new protocol.

"IPv6 adoption must be made now to take advantage of future internet growth of mobile and machine-to-machine technologies that allow data to flow. There is a risk that businesses could be exposed by the lack of IPv4 addresses," he said.

"The government has set an ambitious agenda of having the best superfast broadband network by 2015 and we need IPv6 to support this."

The internet is worth some £100bn to the UK economy and represents 7.2 per cent of overall gross domestic product, according to Hendon.

However, Vint Cerf, chief internet evangelist at Google, and regarded as one of the 'fathers of the internet', called on the government to do more.

"The government could offer tax credits or other incentives to businesses that purchase IPv6 equipment," he said at the 6UK launch event.

Jim Reid, company secretary at 6UK, pointed out that, while IPv4 provided four billion addresses, IPv6 offers 340 trillion, trillion, trillion addresses, a figure that should ensure enough addresses for years to come.

"The future growth of the internet is dependent on IPv6 to ensure that new devices entering the market can get online," he said.

Vesna Manojlovic, an advanced courses trainer at RIPE NCC, one of five Regional Internet Registries providing internet resource allocations, warned that the UK is lagging behind other European countries in the adoption of IPv6.

As part of the overall drive for IPv6 adoption, Manojlovic announced that RIPE NCC will offer a company's first request for an IPv6 address free of charge to encourage adoption.

All of the speakers at the launch event underlined that the current IPv4 system will run out of available spaces before the end of 2011, and urged businesses to set out strategies for the adoption of IPv6 as soon as possible.