Telephone companies, internet service providers and research and education networks have joined forces to promote version 6 of the Internet Protocol through the IPv6 Forum. IPv6 promises a higher quality, more secure next-generation internet, and the Forum hopes to raise market awareness of what the new protocol can do. It plans to work closely with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which is responsible for the technical specs of IPv6. Many members of the Forum are contributors to the IETF.
Why a new IP? Internet Protocol version 4 is nearly 20 years old, and though it has proved remarkably resilient, there is an increasing shortage of IP addresses. IPv6 has an immensely larger address space: 128-bits to IPv4’s 32. That said, IPv4’s address space shortage is far from being the only justification for the upgrade. IPv6’s fringe benefits include much better support for routing, auto-configuration and multi-casting. It should be easier to make IPv6 networks secure, and easier to administer and address the special problems of mobile devices on next-generation networks.
IPv4 won’t be replaced overnight, however, and the two protocols are expected to co-exist for the next few years. The IETF worked hard to make sure that the protocols inter-operate as gracefully as possible. Now it’s the Forum’s job to persuade network users to make the switch. Initial members of the IPv6 Forum include BT, Deutsche Telecom, Ericsson, Nokia, Siemans, 3Com, AT&T, Cisco, Compaq, HP, IBM, MCI WorldCom, Microsoft, Motorola, Qwest, Sprint, Sun and NTT.
