Internet 'next generation' up and running

The next generation of the internet, known as internet protocol version 6, took another big step toward commercialisation, as its second phase of testing in North America wrapped up last week.

Moonv6, the network used in the testing, is an IPv6 backbone built by the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (IOL), the North American IPv6 Task Force, Internet2, the US Department of Defense and more than 30 networking vendors, testing vendors and service providers. The virtual IPv6 backbone stretches from New Hampshire to California and will be permanent, so that equipment makers, software vendors, service providers and anyone else who would like to test IPv6 interoperability in a live network can do so.

For two weeks in March, the North American IPv6 Task Force, the Defense Information Systems Agency's Joint Interoperability Testing Command and others tested the network for quality of service, security, application handling, networking protocols and end-to-end domain name server functionality on all major operating systems.

IPv6 expands the pool of unique addresses available for connecting PCs and other devices in the internet. It is widely regarded as a necessary successor to the current system for internet addressing, IPv4, which many people say does not provide enough space in its address field to support the millions of devices that will likely be added to the internet in the next several years.

Mobile communications and new IP services, such as voice over Internet Protocol and video on demand, will increase the number of devices that need IP addresses. The IP address shortage is likely to affect Asia and Europe first, where adoption of these new technologies is growing fast. Few analysts expect the problem to impact US networks anytime soon.

Rose Klimovich, vice president of global IP virtual private networks at AT&T, said: "We are seeing interest in Asia, particularly in Japan And in the US, we're seeing interest mainly from the government. There have been a few customers interested in IPv6, and they are starting to talk to us about it now."

Klimovich said AT&T's network is ready today for IPv6, but customers haven't yet asked for the service. NTT, which also participated in the testing, offers an IPv6 service in the US today. France Telecom, another participating service provider, doesn't currently offer an IPv6 service, but it can deliver some IPv6 traffic to the US.

The Defense Department is the main driver behind the Moonv6 project and the adoption of IPv6 in the US. In June 2003, the department set a mandate that all agencies be IPv6-ready by 2008. As a result, the Moonv6 project was launched to provide a test bed to certify equipment and work out protocol kinks.

Technology companies that participated in Moonv6 included AT&T, France Telecom, Agilent Technologies, Check Point Software Technologies, Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Foundry Networks, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, Lucent Technologies, Microsoft, NEC, NetScreen Technologies, Nokia, Panasonic, Procket Networks, Spirent, Sun Microsystems and Symantec.

Marguerite Reardon writes for News.com