IPv6: Release Connectivity Potential, Boost Digital Economy

On February 28, 2022, IPv6 Summit (hosted by Informa Tech) themed “Release Potential Connectivity, Boost Digital Economy” was held at W Hotel Barcelona, Spain, during MWC 2022. Nine speakers from the Internet Hall of Fame, European Telecommunications Standards Institute, Botswana Minister of Transport and Communications, MTN, Swisscom, OMDIA, and Informa Tech attended the summit and delivered keynote speeches on how to release connectivity potential and how to accelerate the development of the digital economy. More than 100 guests attended the summit onsite and more than 400 people participated online.

To kick off the summit, Mr. Richard Mahony, Vice President of Service Provider Markets at Informa Tech — the sponsor of this summit — delivered a speech themed “Bridging the Digital Divide – Growing Digital Consumption and IPv6”. He said that there are more benefits of IPv6 than simply a larger address space. Some of these benefits include easier deployment and management, reduced latency, simplified network architecture, easy innovation, and easier rollout of new services.

Vint Cerf, father of the Internet and Internet Hall of Fame pioneer, followed on with a video message. He recalled his tongue-in-cheek forecast of the future when he said that he used to wear a T-shirt with “IP on Everything” in 1992, causing quite a stir at an IETF conference at that time. But today, the IP protocol, which is the foundation of the TCP/IP protocol suite, has indeed become the world standard. With the advent of digital transformation, IPv6-based IP technologies are widely used.

At the beginning of the keynote speeches, Mr. Latif Ladid, Chair of ETSI IPE, delivered a speech on the theme of “IPv6 Now: Powering digitalization and innovations now with IPv6-based networks”. He began by saying that IPv6 is on the rise. As countries gain a deeper understanding of how important IPv6 is, they have issued IPv6 policies one after another, greatly promoting the global development of IPv6. He went on to say that the ETSI IPE Alliance is actively promoting IPv6 development and innovation. Currently, it has more than 80 members. IPE defined IPv6 Enhanced in 2020 and fully explored the value of IPv6 Enhanced in 5G, cloud, and data center scenarios in 2021. Based on IPv6, IPv6 Enhanced Innovate in six dimensions: ultra-broadband, ubiquitous connectivity, automation, low latency, determinism, and security. Latif Ladid added that all parties in the industry are welcome to actively join the IPE and jointly promote the global IPv6 development.

As the only government regulator spokesperson at the summit, Thulaganyo Merafe Segokgo, Botswana Minister of Transport and Communications, delivered a speech themed “Opportunities for Botswana’s Digital Transformation”. Following UBBF in October 2021, he again expressed his views on IPv6 development. He first introduced the progress of digitalization in Botswana, and then said that Botswana is developing policies to promote its digital development. IPv6 is of vital importance to Botswana and is the key to digital development.

Operators play a key role in the digital development process and are responsible for network infrastructure construction. MTN has built the world’s first intelligent cloud network based on IPv6 Enhanced. Two guests from MTN gave video messages at the IPv6 summit, introducing MTN’s cloud network strategy from the perspectives of the group and subnets, and sharing the practice of the South Africa subnet’s intelligent cloud network.

Lloyd Mphahle, General Manager of Transport & OSS Tools at MTN, delivered a speech themed “Cloud-Network Synergy Builds a Network with the Best Customer Experience”. Cloud services are the blue ocean market in Africa. He said that as the leading telecom operator on the African continent, MTN group believes that digital transformation will accelerates enterprise cloudification, which are make huge market space. MTN Group commits to seize this rare opportunity, with the support of MTN CASSI Transport network strategy to build an Intelligent Cloud-Network, helping MTN build its core competitiveness.

Calvin Govender, General Manager of Technology Fixed Line Services at MTN SA, shared the experience of MTN intelligent cloud network construction in South Africa. He said that South Africa accounts for 65% of the cloud market in Africa and has a huge market space. The cloud-based network development will help MTN seize the cloud market. Based on the CAASI framework, MTN has built the world’s first intelligent cloud network based on IPv6 Enhanced, enabling the network to connect to multiple clouds, one-stop service, and deterministic service assurance capabilities. This provides solid assurance for MTN cloud services in South Africa.

As a well-known operator in Europe, Swisscom has a deep understanding of network automation. Thomas Graf, Distinguished Network Engineer and Network Analytics Architect at Swisscom, attended the meeting and delivered a speech themed “Network Analytics – Data Modeling Using Data Mesh and Network Telemetry”. Thomas shared his ideas and practices in network visualization and predictive O&M, from data collection on the control plane, data plane, and management plane to big data storage, analysis, and application implementation.

Huawei was the only vendor at the summit to field a speaker. Mr. Steven Zhao, Vice President of Huawei Data Communication Product Line, delivered a speech themed “IPv6 Enhanced, the cornerstone of digitalization.” He pointed out that the digital wave is sweeping the world and that enabling digital transformation of all industries requires an important infrastructure: IP networks. The IP network connects everything downwards and applications upwards, playing a vital role in connectivity. In addition, digitalization poses new requirements for the development of IP networks, and IPv6 is of great importance. As a comprehensive IPv6-based network capability improvement, IPv6 Enhanced brings many benefits to society covering four aspects: promoting innovation and entrepreneurship, digital economic transformation, scientific and technological development, and maintaining economic growth in the post-pandemic era. It also plays an important role in the digital transformation of all industries.

At the end of the summit, the IPv6 Enhanced based intelligent cloud-network white paper was released for the first time outside China. The moderator and author, Sameer Ashfaq Malik, gave a detailed introduction to the white paper and invited offline and online participants to download it.