IPv6 transition stalled by lack of motivation

The telecom industry’s call to action over the adoption of IPv6 is falling on deaf ears in the enterprise space, according to analyst research released on Wednesday.

Analyst house Ovum has identified a ‘head in the sand’ attitude prevalent among corporations with regards to the deployment of IPv6, a new addressing standard essential to future growth of the internet.

The recent World IPv6 day is one example of industry players promoting the protocol as the next generation internet and pressurising enterprises to prepare for the move, but the major lack of urgency is enterprises’ belief there are still plenty of IPv4 addresses available, which may be the case within the enterprise but is not the case on a wider scale.

Telecoms.com has been running a poll over the last few weeks asking telecoms executives how ready they are for IPV6, with almost 50 per cent of respondents asking if anyone has more IPv4 addresses they can buy. Trade in unused IPv4 addresses is on the rise since the internet registries ran out of IPv4 addresses earlier this year.

Around 18 per cent of our 100 respondents say that their company has IPv6 ready and tested. Although Mike Sapien, Ovum principal analyst, warns that his research suggests that many enterprise customers think they are already using IPv6, when they are not.

Metrics carried out by industry players have revealed that IPv6 traffic counts for less than three per cent of all internet traffic today, Sapien said, and as Asia-Pacific leads the world in IPv6 adoption, enterprises and their many suppliers doing business within this region will be influenced to follow suit.

“Internet application and service providers should continue to focus on customer education so that enterprise and consumer customers increase their awareness of the transition to IPv6. They should explain what the transition entails for the customer’s computers, network equipment, routers, servers and web infrastructure so that they are clear about what is involved. Every enterprise needs a plan before they hit the IPv6 wall unexpectedly,” Sapien said.