GOVT. TOLD TO BE CONSUMER, NOT REGULATOR, OF IPv6

The govt.’s role in promoting the next-generation Internet, IPv6, should be “primarily that of an intensely interest consumer of Internet products,” Qwest said in comments to the Commerce Dept., echoing most commenters, who believed the govt. shouldn’t mandate the transition from IPv4. Several said security improvements weren’t as important an attribute of IPv6 as previously billed; the transition was faster in Asia; and market demand would boost the U.S. transition.

Rather than a govt. mandate, a “gradual, market-based conversion to IPv6” is most technologically feasible and would be least disruptive, Microsoft said. Most users have seen little need to switch to IPv6, Microsoft said, and “only recently have all the necessary pieces of the IPv6 conversion puzzle begun to come together to make large-scale deployment economically feasible.” Sprint said it was confident the IPv6 transition would happen without govt. involvement “over the course of the next several years.” Several commenters said IPv6’s advantages for mobile Internet would be a significant factor.

The govt. “may wish to consider funding additional research and development, if necessary,” for IPv6, Sprint said, but few suggested a larger govt. role. Motorola also saw a research role for govt. Several, including Microsoft, said govt. should consider adopting IPv6 for its use, both to spur the technology and because of its advantages over IPv4.. But “government intervention could result in unwarranted costs and inefficiencies that would outweigh potential benefits,” BellSouth said, reflecting most other commenters. “Nothing about the current state of IPv6 deployment suggests that there has been a market failure that would justify government intervention with its attendant risks,” Microsoft said.

One of the early suggested advantages of IPv6 -- heightened security -- has been overplayed, several commenters said. The Internet Security Alliance (ISA), for example, said IPv6 may actually be less secure in the early going because most of the security flaws of IPv4 have been found and fixed over the last 20 years: “The IPv6 code base will initially not have benefited from this vast degree of close scrutiny and consequently it is likely that the introduction of IPv6 will manifest many more security vulnerabilities during the early phases.” ISA also noted that many of the security vulnerabilities of IPv4 had been inherited by IPv6.

IPv6’s security benefits “are no longer uniquely compelling,” VeriSign agreed. It said “paradoxical results” such as increased network vulnerability were possible. It suggested that NTIA and the National Institute of Standards & Technology “convene an interdisciplinary and international process… to evaluate the present security environments as we transit to a more pervasive IPv6 deployment.”

IPv6 does “potentially” provide additional security, Alcatel said, because it supports IPSec protocols, which require authentication headers and encapsulated security payload. Sprint said such requirements eliminate “a significant portion of network attacks.”

The benefits of additional Internet addresses also have become less important, particularly in the U.S., some said. Alcatel, for example, said such things as IP mobility and increased quality of service for next-generation applications were more important.

VeriSign and others said the govt. probably should get involved in promoting a post-IPv6, Internet protocol. They said 20 years had passed since work on IPv6 began, and VeriSign said development of the next generation “can not be allowed to consume the same amount of time… as has IPv6.” - - Michael Feazel