Latif Ladid, IPv6 Forum President

IPv6 Reality

InterComms talks to Latif Ladid of the IPv6 Forum, about the real problems that face the telcos if they don’t deploy IPv6

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Latif Ladid holds the following positions: President, IPv6 FORUM www.ip6forum.org, Chair, European IPv6 Task Force www.ipv6.eu, Emeritus Trustee, Internet Society www.isoc.org, Board Member IPv6 Ready & Enabled Logos Program and Board Member World Summit Award www.wsis-award.org.

Latif is a Senior Researcher at the University of Luxembourg “Security & Trust” (SnT) www.securityandtrust.lu on multiple European Commission Next Generation Technologies IST Projects: 6INIT, www.6init.org - First Pioneer IPv6 Research Project; 6WINIT, Euro6IX, www.euro6ix.org; Eurov6, www.eurov6.org; NGNi, www.ngni.org; Project initiator of SEINIT, www.seinit.org and SecurIST, www.securitytaskforce.org.

Latif initiated the new EU project u-2010 to research Emergency & Disaster and Crisis Management, www.u-2010.eu, re-launched the Public Safety Communication Forum, www.publicsafetycommunication.eu, supported the new IPv6++ EU Research Project called EFIPSANS, www.efipsans.org and the new safety & Security Project using IPv6 called Secricom, www.secricom.eu and co-initiated the new EU Coordination of the European Future Internet Forum for member States called ceFIMS to start soon.

Latif is also a Member of 3GPP PCG (www.3gpp.org), 3GPP2 PCG (www.3gpp2.org), Vice Chair, IEEE ComSoc EntNET (www.comsoc.org/~entnet/), Member of UN Strategy Council, member of IEC Executive Committee, Board member of AW2I, Board Member of Nii Quaynor Institute for Research in Africa, and member of the Future Internet Forum EU Member States, representing Luxembourg: http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/foi/lead/fif/index_en.htm

Q: IPv6 is now becoming a reality; are the operators still not taking it seriously, or has the penny dropped?
A: IPv6 is been now seriously deployed by the worldwide ISPs. The ramp-up among ISP’s is quite massive. If you look at this stats you will see a surge from a very low level before Feb 2011 to a boom since then: www.sixxs.net/tools/grh/dfp/

Over 9,000 networks have requested for IPv6 from among some 20,000 Registries members. That’s pretty massive and growing daily. The US is by far the largest, hence it’s strategic relevance.

Some 171 countries have joined.

Q: What are the serious problems that will effect the operators if they do not deploy IPv6?
A: It’s more a plumbing exercise, it is a big investment to ISPs if they have not prepared themselves through the refresh cycle of the past couple of years. From now on it’s a fork-lift upgrade. Not having IP addresses means not been able to connect new routers, email and web servers and therefore cannot add new customers and new users. The growth of their network will not only be halted but will no more be competitive to serve new needs especially those of Internet of Things, Smart Grids, smart phones etc.

Q: If deployed, what are the main benefits to the Telco’s?
A: Business continuity and sustainability. With restoration of the end to end model, users can use the Internet as a two-way internet for all kinds applications that need this like VoIP, remote access to home devices etc. The innovation will be plentiful.

Q: Are there set standards to IPv6, and who is responsible for them?
A: IPv6 has already been standardized back in December 1998 by the IPv6 Task Force at the IETF and many new RFC’s have been published enhancing its features over the past decade. The IPv6 Task Force designers are the people who formed the IPv6 Forum in Feb 1999. The IETF is responsible for the standardization and the IPv6 Forum has been very aggressive in its promotion with IPv6 technical summits and the opening of IPv6 Forum Chapters around the world.

Q: Where can the Telco’s go for help in deploying IPv6?
A: Most of the operators are participants in the IPv6 Forum events and Logo programs like the WWW and ISP Logo programs (see www.ipv6ready.org). We have recently announced the World IPv6 Internet program to look closely at the real deployment issue of the enterprise networks, government and critical networks as well attract Apps developers, see www.boundv6.org.

For more information visit:
www.ipv6forum.com