The high demand for Internet addresses to develop smart houses would help speed up the shifting from IPv4 to IPv6.

In order to develop smart houses, which is considered new tendency for new urban areas, service providers would need a very high number of Internet addresses for different modern equipments such as TV, refrigerators or air conditioners. Meanwhile, the modest number of IPv4 left clearly cannot provide enough addresses. 

This means that in order to develop smart houses, it would be necessary to use IPv6 addresses, which would speed up the shifting into IPv6.

A senior executive of the Vietnam Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT) has revealed that it plans to provide some basic services, such as email, web, VPN and LTE on IPv6 basis in a trial period in 2013-2014, and try other services like IPTV, VoIP and video conference by 2015-2017. Besides, it would also conduct research on the technologies relating to IPv6.

Other Internet service providers have also said that they are considering providing basic services such as email, web or hosting on IPv6.

However, Tran Ba Thai, Deputy Chair of the Vietnam Internet Association, it would be impossible to accelerate the shifting to IPv6, if Vietnamese companies only provide basic services.

Since the basic services can be provided on the basis of IPv4, people would not feel the urgent need to shift into IPv6

Currently, most of Vietnamese people are not interested in IPv6, believing that shifting into IPv6 is the thing service providers, equipment manufacturers have to do to ensure the normal Internet access of smart phones, tablets and computers. Internet service users now just need Internet to satisfy their demand for calling, reading newspapers or emailing.

However, Thai said, if Internet service providers can offer higher grade services, this would help stimulate the demand for IPv6 addresses, thus leading to the more rapid shifting into IPv6. 

The number of smart phone users in Vietnam has been increasing steadily. If they use their smart phones to operate their smart houses (checking camera, turning on electric equipments, turning on/off TVs from a distance), they would need IPv6 addresses, since the services cannot be provided on the IPv4 basis.

“The network operators who are late in shifting IPv6 would miss their business opportunities,” Thai said. “The number of smart phone users has been increasing every day. Network operators should grab their opportunities, or it would be too late.”

Sharing the same view with Thai, a representative from NTT Communications said once users can control household equipments from a distance, they would see that IPv6 can change their lives, and they would have higher demand to use the services on IPv6, the services which cannot be satisfied by IPv4.

Smart houses have become popular in developed economies and they have more familiar in the countries with developed information technology infrastructure. In Vietnam, besides foreign companies, two Vietnamese ones, FPT and BKAV have also been providing smart house services.

RIPE NCC, a domain name hosting institution, has released a report about the implementation of IPv6 around the world. The three countries which are considered as having the networks best adapted to IPv6 capacity include Norway (49.3 percent), the Netherlands (43.6 percent) and Malaysia (37.1 percent).

Vietnam is considered the nation which shows unstable results about the readiness to IPv6. In May 2012, Vietnam’s network adaptability level to IPv6 was 12 percent.

Source: Buu Dien/ VNN