Migration to new Internet protocol likely by 2006

TRAI to submit final recommendations on transition by end of Dec

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will submit the final recommendations to the government of India on the proposed transition of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) to Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) by December this year.

The TRAI, which is presently holding open house discussions on the consultation paper on "Issues relating to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 in India" across the country, will prepare the draft regulations on the issue after the last round of open house to be held in Delhi on October 28, before sending the final recommendations to the government, said Devendra P S Seth, member, TRAI.

Speaking to reporters after the open house held here on Tuesday, he said the final recommendations will be prepared and submitted to the government early next year to pave way for the transition to IPv6. Government has already constituted a group called IPv6 Implementation Group to speed up and facilitate the adoption of IPv6 in the country in early 2006, he said.

Worldwide the new IPv6 is being implemented on the Internet to accommodate increased number of users and take care of security concerns. In the Broadband Policy 2004, the government has envisaged broadband and internet subscribers of 20 million and 40 million by 2010 respectively through various Internet and broadband technologies. The present generation Internet (IPv4) is not enough to achieve these objectives, he said.

For giving a fillip to this effort, Seth said TRAI has prepared a consultation paper and is gathering specific information, action requirements from the industry across the country through the open house discussions.

"The primary motivation for the deployment of IPv6 is to expand the available address space on the Internet, thereby enabling millions of new devices, such as personal digital assistants (DPAs), cellular phones, home appliances in addition to computers to be made always connected to the Internet," he said.

It is expected that the next generation Internet protocol (IPv6) can help in solving the problems related to quality of service (QOS) and security aspects of the Internet. In order to get an overview of various issues involved in the migration from IPv4 to IPv6, TRAI had commissioned a study on the "Issues relating to transition from IPv4 to IPv6 in India".

According to the findings of the study, India has merely 2.8 million IPv4 addresses compared to 40 million in China. USA ISP Level-3 alone has more IP addresses than China. India has 0.17 of an address block, while the US has full 75 blocks.

"If India wants to achieve 20 per cent penetration of the Internet, and three persons share each IP address it will need 101/8 blocks. This is more than the remaining global IP address space of 82/8 blocks," the consultation paper said.

Seth said the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is presently engaged in the creating the National IPv6 backbone called India Next Generation Internet (INGI). This would help enhance the integration of the national networks and increase the operational experience on novel Internet services and applications based on the use of IPv6.