The Council Chairman, Mr. Muhammed Rudman made this call in
Abuja during a courtesy visit to the Executive Vice Chairman (EVC) of the
Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta at NCC
Headquarters on Thursday the 15th of September, 2016.
According to him, the world of Internet is going out of Internet
Protocol version Four (IPv4) addresses, this is a fact as Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA) has allocated the remaining eight IPv4 address blocks
to each of the 5 Regional Internet Registries (RIR) namely AP-NIC, RIPE-NCC, AFRI-NIC, ARIN and LACNIC
since 2011.
He explained that the new Internet Protocol (IPv6) will open
a pool of Internet addresses that is a billion-trillion times larger than the
total pool of IPv4 address which is about 4.3 billion, pointing out that this
means the number of IPv6 addresses is virtually inexhaustible for the
foreseeable future.
This, he noted would address the need of the ever expanding
world population, the growth of the domain name system due to the opening of
the new generic Top Level Domains (gTLDs) and the emerging Internet of Things
(IoT).
Rudman also said that IPv6 preserves everything good in
today's Internet, and much more, such as stateless auto-configuration, seamless
mobility, automated network management, end to end security and new optional
service levels.
He equally said most of the developed world has already
embraced IPv6, with countries competing for positions in the global ranking on
IPv6 adoption, lamenting that Nigeria is lacking so far.
"Unfortunately, most of the African countries are late
on this mass migration, with Nigeria particularly lagging behind even within
Africa, this should not be taken lightly considering that we have the largest
number of Internet users in Africa and the seventh in the world. For example,
out of the 103 Autonomous System Numbers registered in Nigeria only 4 are live
on IPv6, even the 4 are not propagating it properly on the net. It is
noteworthy to mention that over 30 organisations have acquired IPv6 from
AfriNIC but most of them are not using it," he said.
Rudman who is also the Chief Executive Officer, Internet
Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) disclosed that major content producers such as
Google, Facebook, Microsoft have all adapted IPv6 giving the opportunity to
IPv6 networks access to their contents.
He listed some of the challenges identified for the lack of
IPv6 adoption in Nigeria to include lack of the required technical skills,
Core, Metro and Edge equipment compatibility issues, lack of IPv6 upstream service providers most
service providers do not understand the business case for the migration among
others.
Rudman, who was accompanied by the council vice chairman,
Mr. Chris Uwaje, Mrs. Mary Uduma, member and chairman of the Communications and
Advocacy Committee (CAC) of the council, Mr. Remmy Nweke, said that to address
some of these challenges, the IPv6 Council Nigeria has perfected plans to
commence free regular trainings to organisations and individuals interested in
IPv6, registration for such trainings have already commenced via the council’s
website.
"We hope that these training would expose the
participants with right set of skills to assist their various organisations
migrate to IPv6 so that Nigeria can occupy its rightful position in the global
IPv6 readiness," he said.
Rudman reiterated the Council's commitment to the
advancement and promotion of IPv6 best practices and lessons learned in
Nigeria, with a mission to provide technical leadership and innovative thought
for the successful integration of IPv6 into all facets of networking and
telecommunications infrastructure, present and future.
To promote IPv6 awareness, he said the Council recently
inaugurated the Communications and Advocacy Committee, made up of veteran ICT
journalists as its members.
In his remarks, EVC Danbatta assured the Council of NCC’s to
encourage telcos to key into IPv6 deployment in the country and through
facilitation of capacity building workshops, pointing that it may be difficult
to identify all the challenges hindering IPv6 adoption in Nigeria.
Danbatta was optimistic that the Commission will work with
the Council on strategic plans which must involve the stakeholders, stressing
that the Council constitution is timely and will grow adoption as well as usage
of IPv6 in the country, in addition to putting in place the legal guidelines to
ensure companies in the sector and beyond buy into the initiative.
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Pix: Courtesy Visit: The EVC of NCC Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta (middle); to his right is member of the council, Mrs. Mary Uduma and his left, IPv6 Council Chairman, Mr. Muhammed Rudman, vice chairman, Chris Uwaje and chairman of Communications and Advocacy of the council, Mr. Remmy Nweke flanked by some management staff of NCC during a courtesy visit to EVC Danbatta in Abuja on Thursday, September 15, 2016.
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