Stakeholders Seek IPv6 Compliance Timeline for MDAs

By Emma Okonji

Given the slow migration rate from Internet Protocol version four (IPv4) to Internet Protocol version six (IPv6), some industry stakeholders have called on the federal government to set a compliance deadline for all government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The stakeholders who made the call at a recent webinar, organised by IPv6 Council Nigeria, in collaboration with the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), said setting IPV6 compliance date for MDAs, would compel them to invest in IPv6, which is an online addressing system of assigned numbers on the internet, and part of the underlying infrastructure of the internet.

The urgent need for migration to IPv6 was sequel to the fast depletion of IPv4, which Nigerians and the entire world were initially connected to.

President, IPv6 Council Nigeria, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, who delivered the lead paper at the webinar, titled: ‘IPv4 and IPv6 Deployment Status in Nigeria’, said: “Internet Protocol (IP) depletion is real and the numbers are significantly dropping globally.

Federal government should set up target dates for MDAs to have IPv6 compliant network, and government should lead by example in driving IPv6 deployment in the country, by ensuring that government networks are run on IPv6 internet addressing system to enable government compel service providers to adopt IPv6.”

Also, Managing Director, Rack Centre, Dr. Tunde Coker, said Nigeria needed to set a target for the adoption of IPv6 because internet penetration in Nigeria is on the rise and on the fast lane, and called for collaboration among service providers in order to drive IPv6 adoption in Nigeria.

According to Rudman, “Among the global IP addresses on the internet, there are 256/8s IP addresses on the internet, amounting to 4.2 billion IP addresses, and AfriNIC, which is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) for Africa, receives the lowest IP address among the five Regional Internet Registries globally.

“For the IP addresses, Nigeria is using less than other African countries, even though Nigeria has the highest internet utilisation in Africa.

“So to address the future worldwide population, which is estimated to reach nine billion in the 2050, we need the IPv6 address system that has trillions of IP addresses.”

In his contribution, the Head, Network Planing and IP at MainOne, Mr. Adesiyan Omololu, said Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and the submarine cable operators were ready for IPv6 adoption, but the endusers appear not to be ready, because most of them are not willing and ready to adopt IPv6.

On his part, the Managing Director, VDT, Mr. Biodun Omoniyi, however, argued that the endusers were not the challenge to the adoption of IPv6, because according to him, most endusers were ready and willing to connect to IPv6 enabled networks.

“What we need is for government to sensitise the people and the endusers and encourage them to connect to IPv6, and upstream providers must continually advertise and accept peering in other to drive adoption of IPv6,” Omoniyi said.

Also, the Head of Capacity Building, AfriNIC, Mr. Mukom Tamom, who discussed the use of IPv6, said users were not the challenge for the adoption of IPV6 because the users do not really care about the type of technology that service providers are using. He said the users were more concerned about the speed of connectivity and download speeds, and would always want result in a faster way.

“It is therefore the job of service providers to deliver services to their customers with IPv6. AfrNIC will continue to train Africans and Nigerias and build capacities for new technologies that will drive IPv6 adoption,” Mukom said.

In his contribution, the CEO, Business Division, ipNX, Mr. Olusegun Okuneye, said: “Nigeria needs to expand her IP networks in order to accommodate more devices, given the increased demand for internet usage across the country.”

He listed the advantages of IPv6 to include scalability, security enhancement, and high speed of connectivity.