Telecom players want test bed on GeNext Internet

With India working towards joining a select group of countries in adopting the next generation technology for Internet services, private companies, PSU telecom operators and international players are pushing for say in the creation of a national test bed to stimulate the transition, before adopting the new technology.

Most stakeholders think that India should replace its existing system of Internet Protocol (IP) allocation and set up a national Internet registry (NIR) under the new regime.

At present, the IP version 4 (IPv4) is used globally for Internet services. Since the Internet protocol addresses under the current technology are likely to exhaust in the near future, the US, Japan and the European Union are in the advanced stages of experimenting with the Version 6 (IPv6) technology, to overcome the limitations of the present regime.

The IPv6 will allow a larger number of addresses (10 to the power 38) to be registered. Internet experts say it will take at least three decades for the addresses to get exhausted under the new system.

"We are looking into these issues and after consultations with all stakeholders, we will soon come up with our recommendations on the transition," Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Chairman Pradip Baijal told Business Standard.

Almost all players agree on creating a national test bed for "national IPv6 backbone", on the lines similar to the ones in China, Europe, Japan and Korea.

A test bed will help identify large-scale deployment issues and transition mechanisms upfront, evaluate contending technologies and come up with solutions.

Indian private players Wipro Technologies, Internet Service Providers Association of India, Bharti and Sify have told Trai that the government should create, support and fund the test bed as per the international trends.

But, the two telecom PSUs MTNL and BSNL say the government should set up a pilot IPv6 network only with them before attempting the transition process.