“New Internet” Gains Support

By Robert Green, Senior Editor

The pressure on agencies to begin extending information beyond legacy boundaries, plus the recent reverberation of voices on Capitol Hill, has boosted the once-floundering “new Internet” movement.

Known as IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), the “new Internet” concept is actually a set of standards advocated by numerous industry leaders as well as some in the Pentagon and Commerce department, both of which began factoring IPv6 into long-term adoption plans in 2003.

To date, IPv6 has been more robustly adopted in Asia and Europe—prompting the chairman of the influential House Government Reform Committee to lament lagging agency action and to call for hearings on the matter. Rep. Tom Davis (R.-VA.) said in May he is worried the U.S. will lose major technology ground abroad if IPv6 is ignored by the government here.

Demonstrate Value
 

U.S. industry continues to both demonstrate the value of IPv6 and include its basic specs in many new IT and communications components. Earlier this year, officials from Panasonic demonstrated IPv6 web cams linked in a four-way video conference that included a mobile phone, a dashboard system, a desktop system, and a notebook computer—all seamlessly linked via the 6 spec.

Such systems work across disparate devices because IPv6 is robust enough (128-bit versus 32-bit) that Network Address Translators (NAT) and other ad hoc solutions to networking scaling are no longer necessary, advocates say.

IPv6 capability is most often built at the infrastructure level—routers, host servers, firewalls and network management devices, with endpoint-to-endpoint encryption for security.

To date, DOD’s effort to migrate to IPv6 as part of its GIG network-centric strategy has been fledgling and, according to critics, under-funded. On the other hand, Tokyo is already operating a real-time traffic and weather system that provides “instantaneous local information” via IPv6 installed in 2,000 vehicles—mostly taxi cabs, now IT-enabled and basically providing real-time feeds direct to the public as they ferry passengers around the city. IPv6 is also said to be a major tool in China’s current cellular build-out.

Extend The Network 
 

IPv6 basically makes it possible to extend a network to wherever a device is located, say advocates like Alex Lightman, publisher of the 6Sense web newsletter. The spec seemingly leverages the fact that endpoint devices are now dictating to networks, and not vice versa.

In a recently published Nortel white paper, product manager Kashif Shaikh noted that “the 3GPP standard for next generation wireless devices mandates IPv6 support” in both the multimedia and remote access network subsystems. “IPv6 was selected because it will allow every device to have its own unique IP address. In addition, IPv6 has auto-configuration, integrated security, flow labels for QoS support, mobility, simplified packet handling and improved multicast support,” Shaikh advised.

Lightman praised the Panasonic demonstration held earlier this year in Las Vegas as a breakthrough. Davis said in May he believes the Office of Management and Budget needs to take an active role in advancing IPv6 in the government. OMB is already leading the information sharing effort in Washington.

Robert Green can be reached at RobertGreen@PubSector.com.