IPv6 development in 'crisis mode'

Africa is now in crisis mode with regards to IPv6 takeover, according to speakers at AfriNIC's public policy meeting yesterday.

SA also does not have policies in place for the switchover, according to deputy communications minister Obed Bapela. He says this still needs to be addressed, along with the regulatory environment.

Adiel Akplogan, CEO of Internet numbers registry for Africa, AfriNIC, says there is no fixed day when IPv4 addresses will run out but the exhaustion date for the AfriNIC region is projected to be April 2014.

The two protocols will work together and there are many mechanisms that allow a smooth coexistence, says Akplogan. Slowly, however, IPv6 will take precedence over IPv4 to become, at some point, the default.

“This takeover is important because you cannot connect to the Internet if you do not agree with your peer. It is important to note that the Internet works on a point-to-point peering agreement.”

He says Africa should be assessing both software and hardware infrastructure to ensure IPv6 compatibility, and emphasis should be placed on engineering skills and education for the new protocol.

Hisham Ibrahim, IPv6 programme manager at AfriNIC, says that at this point in the game it's not called early adoption anymore. “It's just adoption now.”

Andrew Alston, CTO of Tenet, goes even further to say it's not even adoption now. “We're in crisis mode. We think it's all fine now and it will work itself out, until customers start calling and saying they can't access something.”

Graham Beneke, a speaker at the meeting, says sites like Google, Facebook, Yahoo and YouTube are all already IPv6-ready and users won't be able to access those sites if the switchover doesn't happen in time.

However, ICASA councillor William Stucke says, while attention to the change to IPv6 is urgent, there is no doomsday scenario, provided interoperability between IPv4 and IPv6 is working well, and access networks still have sufficient IPv4 addresses available for growth in the immediate future.

Akplogan adds that the longer IPv6 preparation takes, the greater the costs could be.

“There is an economical incentive and need for us to be deploying IPv6 right now. It's so that our infrastructure is compatible.”

However, he says changing and upgrading equipment is part of the normal renewal process, so it will not just be an extra expense experienced solely for IPv6 takeover.

However, Vivegananda Padayatchy, chairman of AfriNIC's board of directors, explains that the difficulty will come if we wait too long to do these upgrades and rush at the last minute.

Akplogan adds that in a last-minute situation, one will adopt a rushed solution and then end up paying high prices. “But if we plan from now, we can avoid that and put in place the right infrastructure.”

Alston also says it's cheaper to be IPv6-minded now than to replace everything later. “So if hardware is not completely IPv6 compliant now, don't get it.”

Bapela says the area of cost will be in training engineers and technicians for IPv6.

Akplogan says the end-user, however, will not feel these expenses.

Bapela says apart from the costs involved, broadband is also an issue that needs to be addressed.

The deputy minister says the goal is that by 2015, half of SA's population should have broadband access but the country is currently on 4%. “We need a collaborative plan here.”

Akplogan says the challenges for IPv6 deployment do lie in broadband and cost but the situation should rather be viewed as an opportunity.

“It allows us to have the same knowledge, technology and experience as the rest of the world. Even though we have the challenge of the training and the technology, we have the opportunity to put Africa at the forefront.”

Ibrahim says a basic online search of IPv6 development in the five different regional Internet registries shows all areas either have plans that will be deployed in different stages, models that are already being displayed, deadlines for when public facing servers can start running on native IPv6, or action plans.

This is with the exception of AfriNIC, where Ibrahim says he could not find online national IPv6 roadmaps for any countries in Africa. He only found five countries (Egypt, Ghana, Sudan, Senegal and Tunisia) that have national IPv6 task forces.

He also found that only Senegal has national IPv6 regulation.

However, Ibrahim says a lot is being done in Africa. “We are one of the biggest emerging regions in ICT but we're not shedding enough light on what we're doing.”

He says collaboration is key in addressing this lag and moving forward. “Africa is the only region in the world without a regional task force concerned mainly with IPv6 and its regional development.”

Ibrahim explains that this leads to allegations that Africa needs chaperoning in terms of ICT development.

“The way forward is to get everybody involved: governments, industry, stakeholders.”

Bapela says the policy aspects and regulatory environment need to be addressed immediately in SA for IPv6 preparation. “We need to engage [regulator] ICASA and see if they have a team that's addressing the regulatory issues.”

He adds that some kind of a roadmap needs to be implemented so that by 2014, SA is ready for the frenzy period.

Akplogan says some operators in SA are already playing around with IPv6 but government regulation will formalise this.

Both Telkom and Internet Solutions are working on providing connectivity to other IPv6 networks globally.

Stucke says since a significant part of SA's Internet market is dependent on Telkom's ADSL infrastructure, the country needs to move radically to replace it in time for the switch to IPv6.

He notes that the old equipment used in parts of the ADSL network is not capable of being configured or upgraded to use IPv6.

On top of that, Stucke says, SA only has a single GSM network that is currently rolling out IPv6 connectivity. This will render older cellphones, which do not have IPv6 capability, obsolete, although most PCs do, he notes.