IPv4 is no Y2K

DESARAJU SURYA
Hyderabad: Fears of a slowdown in the growth of Internet due to non-availability of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses for Indian networks seem to be unfounded.
“IPv4 (Internet Protocol version 4) address space is still readily available to Indian networks. Based on the current rate of deployment of IPv4 addresses, around two years’ supply of addresses is still available,” director general of Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) Paul Wilson has confirmed.
Wilson said on the sidelines of the Internet Governance Forum conference held at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who showed a need for the IP addresses “will certainly receive them.”
Wilson said APNIC declined very few requests for IPv4 address space and addresses were equally available to all ISPs regardless of the location.
Though India ranked second in terms of number of ISPs requesting for IP addresses from APNIC, the space actually being requested was relatively small, Wilson pointed out.
“China has reached a total of over 10 ‘/8’ this month (each /8 represents nearly 17 million individual addresses) while India reached a mere one /8 in total,” the APNIC chief pointed out to drive home the point that IPv4 not being available to Indian networks was “misguided.”
“It seems the Indian Internet industry expects deployment of IPv6 to be a solution to the relatively slow pace of Internet growth. While IPv6 is an important long-term requirement for all economies, its deployment will make no real difference in India if the local environment does not encourage healthy growth of a diverse and competitive Internet industry,” Wilson, who is also the chairman of Number Resource Organisation, observed.
APNIC is one of the five Regional Internet Registries that manages global Internet address resources. It is also supporting the Government of India’s initiatives to translate to IPv6 from IPv4.