India set to log in to new Internet Regime...

-Joji Thomas Philip in New Delhi October 21, 2005

With exhaustion of Internet protocol addresses under the current technology looming large, India is set to join a select group of countries to adopt IPv6 technology, which is considered to be a long-term solution to overcome the limitations of the present IPv4 Internet regime.

In addition to offering almost infinite address space, IPv6 technology is considered as the solution for end-to-end global connectivity and Internet scalability.

It can also dwarf the current network into oblivion as it can support unlimited voice over Internet protocol, grid computing, 3G, gaming, file sharing, remote sensing, ad-hoc networks, mobile devices, intelligent transport systems, consumer electronics and smart homes among other applications.

However, a slew of contentious issues, including the role of the government and the licensor in the transition, are yet to be addressed.

While global players such as Cisco Systems, Sun Microsystems and HP and some Indian operators are in favour of the regulator and the government playing a major role, the proposal has been strongly opposed by the Internet Service Providers Association of India (the body representing all ISPs), Sify and MTNL.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has also been entrusted to find solutions to other issues such as policy initiatives, the transition mechanism that is best suited for the migration, the requirement for a national test bed and dividing the transition cost among the stake holders.

Countries like Japan, Korea and China were in the forefront along with the EU, as they had deployed research and experiment budgets for this very early on, the company said.