WASHINGTON-Even as mobility is seen as the greatest benefit to the next generation of the Internet, the wireless world is still trying to get up to speed with mobile use of the current Internet let alone the next-generation Internet.
“The U.S. wireless industry with regards to Internet and data is sort of in a trailing phase with the rest of the world. IPV6 is a lower priority at this point for most of the wireless operators,” said Mark Desautels, vice president of wireless Internet development for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association. “Right now, we are barely seeing about 1, 2 or 3 percent of carrier revenues coming from data services, and these are very simple applications in the United States like ring tones and some games.”
IPV6-Internet Protocol version 6-is the next generation of the Internet. Some hardware and software, such as Windows XP by Microsoft Corp., have both IPV6 and the current IPV4. IPV6 is the dream of many in the computer-science world because of its additional addresses and most importantly because of its wireless component.
“The thing we want out of IPV6 is wireless, so a lot of our research is on the middle ground. How do we make that work in a battery-powered world so your 20-hour cell phone doesn’t become a two-hour cell phone?” said Preston Marshall, program manager of the Defense Advance Research Programs Agency.
Marshall and Desautels were both panelists at a public hearing on IPV6 held Wednesday by the Department of Commerce.
The Commerce Department was asked to examine IPV6 for its cybersecurity benefits as part of the President’s National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace.
Desautels said that if IPV6 truly delivers seamless mobility, then wireless carriers are likely to embrace it. “The idea of seamless mobility is one that drives most of the business decisions that they make, so to the extent that IPV6 is going to help enhance that seamless mobility, it will be something carriers incrementally will be looking to deploy as they upgrade their networks.”
