January 26, 2003

By Jason Deign, News@Cisco

Rarely has there been so much interest in the development of a new technology standard. Internet Protocol Version 6 (or IPv6) is being hailed by technologists word-wide; promoted by politicians; worked upon by engineers; and awaited by some of the world's top business leaders.

The European Commission (EC), which has for some time now been a strong backer of IPv6, gave the standard a strong endorsement this month at a launch event in Brussels, signaling that the new version of the Internet Protocol is ready for deployment.

IPv6 is the first major upgrade to IP in two decades. Cisco Systems has helped lead the development of the standard and shares the EC vision of IPv6 acting as a fundamental building block in the creation of a global information society.

Its predecessor, IPv4 (developed at the same time as IPv5, which ended up being an experimental protocol only), has allowed the Internet to evolve from a scientific and military curiosity to a platform that drives entire industries, public services and private use.

Along the way, IPv4 has also proved that IP is the optimum medium for all communications, from voice to video. But one thing that version 4 cannot do is to grow indefinitely.

It has a 32-bit address space that allows for, at most, around four billion unique globally addressable hosts.

Developments such as Network Address Translation (NAT) have helped extend the potential number of IP addresses in version 4 and there is certainly no imminent danger of them running out with the current 10 percent or so level of Internet penetration across the global population.

However, IPv4 cannot support 'mass-market' levels of 20 percent or more - which is why policy makers in bodies such as the EC are keen to see the introduction of IPv6, which has a 128-bit address space that can allow for 2128 (about 340 undecillion) hosts.

Not only should this allow for any future growth in the Internet but, more importantly, it will allow IP to support the growing number of 'always-on' devices that are being linked to it - from mobile devices to, in the future, home appliances, cars, industrial sensors and who knows what else.

Commercial deployment of IPv6 began in Japan in 2000 and although it now has almost universal backing, the EC has since emerged as one of its staunchest proponents, investing millions of euros in several major projects, including 6NET and Euro6IX, two Europe-wide test beds.

Cisco is coordinating 6NET, a three-year project involving 35 national research networks, academic institutions and industry leaders such as IBM and Sony.

The experience gained in 6NET has helped Cisco to fine-tune its own IPv6 product development. Cisco has had a clear IPv6 road map since 2000 and already virtually all of its platforms are version 6-compliant. The next stage of development is to adapt integrated solutions such as IP telephony - a task which could take up time.

This begs the question: if IPv6 is ready to go now, how long will it be before it enters the mainstream?

In the absence of an immediate need for change and while the merits of different upgrade strategies are debated, "people are expecting version 6 to bring more to the table," says Patrick Grossetete, IPv6 product marketing manager at Cisco.

In other words, now is the time for developers to add some real bells and whistles to IPv6 technologies - which is what Cisco is doing.

"If you expect your 'home gateway' of the future to run more than one device, you do not want to have to call out an engineer to reconfigure everything whenever you add in a new PC, TV or games console," says Grossetete. "So we are looking at ways of doing this automatically."

Another area Cisco is looking at is making greater use of the data links into your home - so, for example, your electricity company's billing system can read your meter for itself, or you can order more milk online from a kitchen device, whenever you run out.

The speed at which Cisco and other vendors are moving means that most of this fine-tuning will be complete by around the end of 2005, so if you are in the market for technology you do not need to worry about IPv6 just yet - but you will be hearing a lot more about it in months to come.

"It is no longer possible for Cisco to envisage a future without version 6," says Grossetete. "If you look at what's happening worldwide, everyone is asking for it - and we cannot ignore them."

Jason Deign is a freelance journalist located in Barcelona, Spain.