'Trai figures on GenNext Internet not accurate'

The Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (Apnic), from which all Internet users in the country buy Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, has said there were statistical and technological mismatches in India's arguments for adopting the next-generation Internet technology networks.

India is set to join a select group of countries to experiment with IP version 6 (IPv6) as it fears that IP addresses will soon be exhausted under the current technology (version 4).

The country is exploring the option of creating a national test bed to simulate the transition and also thinking of replacing its existing system of IP allocation and establishing a national internet registry (NIR) under the new regime.

While the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India's (Trai) consultation paper on the issue talks about "the anxiety in the Asia Pacific region on address space exhaustion," the Apnic said numerous studies have already exposed this to be a myth.

It pointed out that the statistics quoted by Trai were incorrect. According to the regulator's figures, the country had 2.8 million IP addresses, whereas, at the end of August 2005, India had been allocated 5.4 million addresses.

The Apnic agreed with the Trai's stance that compared with India and China, there was considerable disparity in IP resources held by the US. This was not an outcome of the current system of address management, but a result of the earlier system.

With regard to the Trai's statement that Internet service providers were finding it difficult to get addresses, Apnic informed the regulator that there were no special policies affecting any particular country, nor was there any reservation limit on addresses available to any country.

"Trai's figure of 30 plus ISPs out of the total of 180 operational service providers being members of the APNIC is incorrect. At present, more than 130 Indian organisations are members of the Apnic," it said.

On India setting up a national Internet registry, the association said NIRs could only make allocations to ISPs from the APNIC pool of address space, as such registries did not receive a special allocation.

"Trai's stance that if an NIR is created, it becomes a single agency to maintain an address pool is incorrect. The existence of an NIR will not give absolute control to policy-makers or licensors over the use of IP resources. NIRs are required to follow the policies and procedures that are developed and adopted by the Internet community in the Asia-Pacific and documented by the Apnic secretariat," it said.

On the transition to IPv6, the Apnic said although the regulator discussed cost factors like hardware and software, it had failed to discuss in detail the cost of human resources and training. "These are very important cost factors in the transition," it added.