French IPv6 Worldwide Summit - Post event editorial

By Tayeb Ben Meriem President of French IPv6 Worldwide Summit Program Committee

The French IPv6 worldwide Summit, organized by the French IPv6 Task Force in cooperation with the European Telcommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), was held on November 14-15 in Cannes and was an enormous success. The summit attracted more than 150 attendees of which European 70%, Asian 20% and American 10%.

 Three key events were organised:

• 2 days of conferences with noted global IPv6 specialists from varying market sectors and regions

• An IPv6 tutorial that was both theoretical and practical.  This included the setting up of approximately one hundred computers on a network.

• The annual IPv6 worldwide interoperability event (ETSI's Plugtests).

We enjoyed an update of the IPv6 strategies of the most advanced regions (Europe, the United States, and Asia).  Noted, prestigious representatives within the IPv6 world presented these.  They also participated in the Programme Committee and opening sessions as "keynote speakers".

They set out a panoramic view of the strategic positions of IPv6 worldwide, in particular within Europe, the United States, and Asia (China, Korea, Japan and India).  We are pleased to report that the result of IPv6 policies and plans in the various regions (Japan, China, Korea, India, Europe) launched during the last five years remains encouragingly, positive.

New plans are launched since 2005.

From the European Commission’s perspective, after the "eEurope 2005" initiative, Commissioner Viviane Reding launched, a new initiative entitled "i-2010” in 2005. Ulf Dahlsten, Director of the emergent technologies and infrastructure, presented a roadmap and precise orientation for the deployment of IPv6 in Europe, during the summit.

From India, Hemanth Dattatreya, Vice President of the Indian IPv6 Forum, announced for the first time, two major decisions concerning the deployment of IPv6 in India.

• The creation of an IPv6 Interoperability and Testing Logo ready Centre in partnership with Telecom Engineering Center, DIT/MCIT.

• The setting up of the "India-6 Advanced Internet (I6) consortium. This is aimed at generalising the deployment of IPv6 (Networks and Services) in India.

 As a Case study within the education sector perspective, we shared the "Greece Schools" experience.  This is now a major European reference site, where more than 3000 schools are connected via IPv6 in Greece. This network has now gained widespread acceptance in various European countries.

We also presented the French Case Study of Gonfreville, which is viewed under the concept of "the electronic School" and the "electronic Schoolbag".  It consists of two Elementary schools and one High School.

The connectivity of IPv4 and IPv6 is assured, by the regional education network of Normandy, branded "SYRHANO" which is a pioneer in IPv6 in France within the education sector.

In this session, the African region was also represented. The most advanced IPv6 African country is South Africa.  Dr Duncan presented the TELNET's IPv6 network (Education & research Network) as well as his extension in the main border countries of South Africa.  This network is linked to both the European (GEANT), and American (ABILENE), Education and Research networks.

On a general note, there has been the creation of the African regional Internet register "AfriNic" in 2004. With a second objective of disseminating IPv6, this is a strong instrument aiming at integrating this region into global IPv6 activities.

Moreover, we also wanted, in this session, to focus on another governmental sector, Defence, that constitutes of a tremendous IPv6 driver and trigger for other sectors.  

The high level of the speakers (Colonels) in this session testifies to the commitment of the various NATO Ministries of Defence in IPv6. After the DoD's IPv6 Roadmap "2003-2008", most of the Ministries of Defence of the European countries adopted the same strategy.

From operators & ISPs perspective, ATT, Comcast, Teleglobe, CNGI, NTT, KT, CHT, BT, FT set out their IPv6 strategies, roadmaps, and development plans. This segment is clearly moving.

Regarding the applications, the Summit highlighted that the Emergency & Crisis management user case is now at the heart of the strategies in Europe with u-2010 project, Metronetv6 in the US, Live E in Japan and we hope such a wave will lead to a worldwide cross-organisation.

On the Management and security side, a lot of progress needs to be done however; much work is ongoing from commercial and operational perspective in order to meet operators and ISPs requirements.

After the Summit, we arranged a programme of visits to the Chinese delegation with the European Commission, French competitiveness clusters, academic institutions and manufacturers, to initiate collaborations or reinforce those that the Ministry of Industry had already put in place regarding IPv6.

Besides, we organised during the Summit a ceremony aiming for a signature of a MoU on IPv6 between France and India.

Indeed, the French Ministry of Industry set up a joint Workgroup "France-India" on ICTs. This Workgroup is in charge of declining concretely the framework agreement of cooperation signed between the French Ministry of Industry and his Indian counterpart (MCIT).

The 5th meeting of this Workgroup was held on September 19th and 20th in the French Ministry of the Economy gave place to a statement of decision a point of action of which is the signature of a MoU on IPv6 between French Task Force IPv6 and the Indian Forum IPv6 during the Summit IPv6 of Cannes.

The signatories of the MoU are: For India’s side, the VP of IPv6 Forum India, Mr. Hemanth Dattatreya and for France, Tayeb Ben Meriem, the VP of thee French IPv6 Task Force.