The Department of Telecom (DoT) has said that a National Internet Registry (NIR) should be set up under its own purview for the purpose.
Over three years after the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) issued its recommendation on transition to the next generation internet protocol in India (from IPv4 to IPv6), the Department of Telecom (DoT) has said that a National Internet Registry (NIR) should be set up under its own purview for the purpose.
Trai had in its recommendation of January 2006 said NIXI (National Internet Exchange of India) could perform the role of the national registry for enabling the transition to the next-gen protocol. But the government in a recent communication struck the proposal down.
DoT said NIXI has commercial contracts with internet service providers for providing exchange of internet traffic, and does not satisfy the criterion for NIR set by the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC). Australia-based APNIC is responsible for IPv6 resource allocation in the region.
DoT argued that it has a neutral position with respect to telecom service providers including ISPs, and therefore, allocation of IPv6 address blocks should be done through the NIR under its purview.
Replying to the DoT reference, Trai has now said that DoT should initiate the necessary process quickly for establishment of the registry.
“It is important here to mention that Trai’s emphasis at that time was on the creation of the registry in the country at the earliest and even now the emphasis is for immediate setting up of a body for NIR. The modalities as to who should create and administer NIR is basically left to the government,” Trai has told DoT.
“It is noted with concern that after lapse of approximately three years, NIR has not been created. Early action to create NIR is the need of the hour,” the regulator said.
According to Trai, with the increased internet penetration in the country, newer devices, applications and services are likely to be deployed, and that will generate a greater demand for IP addresses. “In addition, internet users are also aspiring for better quality of service, mobility and security while using the internet. The existing version of internet protocol, IPv4, seems to be lagging behind in catering to these newer challenges,” Trai said.
The regulator added that the next generation internet protocol, IPv6, is considered more suitable to address these challenges and various steps towards migration to IPv6 has been initiated by different countries worldwide, especially in the Asia Pacific region where the shortage of IPv4 addresses is likely to be more acute.
Currently, there are around 6.22 million broadband subscribers in the country and the government has targeted 20 million in the year 2010.
IPv6, which is next generation internet protocol, has capacity to expand the available address space on the internet enormously, using 128 bits as against 32 bits of IPv4 as well as having the capability to provide better quality of service.
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