The ICT revolution is a relatively young phenomenon. Businesses just started to see quantifiable returns toward the end of the 1990s and their investments in ICT have been growing exponentially ever since. The results of the adoption were soon reflected at the macroeconomic level. In most countries, ICT investments resulted in increased productivity and new access to remote markets. In a few
countries, an entire ICT industry developed and became a significant contributor to the gross domestic product (GDP). As the Internet became part of every aspect of our lives, its economic value became almost incommensurable.
NOTE For more information about the impact of technologies on GDP, please visit http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/publications/digitalife/ businessdigital.html.
Despite its short history, the ICT revolution and its catalyst IP delivered several important messages to governments around the world. The ICT infrastruc- ture is
• Locally strategic: Business and government organizations rely on ICT.
• Globally strategic: ICT is essential in the economic integration of a
global market.
• An environment for innovation leadership: Economies benefit
significantly from national ICT industry and leadership. The United States stands as a conclusive example.
These lessons naturally led governments to develop strategies with respect to ICT adoption and enablement at the national level. As the foundation of today’s ICT infrastructure, IP and the Internet are specifically addressed in these strate- gies. The Internet, unlike preceding communications infrastructures, came with new rules of management and development. Its technical development is pursued through personal contributions to a democratic forum, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a very different concept from organizations such as the Inter- national Telecommunication Union (ITU), European Telecommunications Stan- dards Institute (ETSI), and International Organization for Standardization (ISO), in which each government has a representative and a vote. The new IETF model significantly reduced the influence of politics on standards and, along with it, governmental level control. Governments had to adapt their strategies to this new environment.
In the early years of the current decade, ICT-related national policies started to emphasize the importance of the IP upgrade. Without a doubt, the concerns over IPv4’s limited resources rightfully justify the increasing focus on IPv6. In May 2007, the American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) Board advised the Internet community about the impending need to migrate to IPv6 due to the depleting IPv4 address space.1 Other Regional Internet Registries (RIR) have advertised similar policies on a unified, global basis. The general principles for addressing the “IPv4 countdown” are highlighted in Réseaux IP Européens (RIPE) policy proposal 2008-03, “Global Policy for the Allocation of the Remaining IPv4 Address Space,”2and in John Curran’s draft RFC “An Internet Transition Plan,” issued in January 2008.3
All RIRs and other Internet governing bodies have coordinated their efforts to ensure a unified approach to IPv4 address exhaustion and the phasing in of IPv6. These efforts include:
• Global synchronization: All five RIRs will proceed at the same time for
measures on IPv4 address exhaustion.
• An announcement of the date when the allocation is terminated: A
goal is to set the date when RIRs cease the allocation in accordance with a precise estimation and to announce the date far ahead of the termination date.
• A promise to not make current address policy stricter for the remainder of IPv4 address lifetime: Keeping the current allocation
criteria as it is until the last date will ensure the steady provision of IPv4 address space.
• A separation of discussions on “recycle” issues: Recovery of unused
address space should be discussed separately.
1. For more information on ARIN IPv6 recommendations, visit http://www.arin.net/announcements/ 20070521.html. For more information on AfriNIC IPv6 recommendations, consult http://
www.afrinic.net/news/afltt-ipv6200707-0015.pdf.
2. http://www.ripe.net/ripe/policies/proposals/2008-03.html.
The economic implications of the migration are the subject of a recently initiated Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) project that highlights the importance of a coordinated, strategic effort toward IPv6 integration as soon as possible.4In 2001, however, when the first national strategy on IPv6 emerged, the IPv4 address space exhaustion was not an acute concern and the market drivers were virtually nonexistent. In reality, the true driver for many of the national strategies that emerged in growing economies was this understanding of the opportunity offered by IPv6 to apply the lessons learned from IPv4 and take a more active role in ICT. This explains the apparent gap that existed for several years between national and business strategies on IPv6. This gap has been closing recently as IPv6 becomes a practical necessity and not just a long-term strategic vision.
The national perspectives on IPv6 vary both in scope and depth. They also reflect the specifics of various economies and sometimes align with larger economic and development plans.5
The national strategies that emerged between 2000 and 2007 can be grouped in three major categories:
• Driving adoption through government mandates: The government
mandates IPv6 adoption within its governmental agencies, which in turn drives adoption in the organizations that interact with and support the government.
• Sponsor adoption: Implement fiscal and legislative policies that
encourage and facilitate IPv6 adoption.
• Support for national research: Encourage and fund research activities
that stimulate innovation and develop know-how.
Examples of such strategies are provided in the subsequent sections. Although the results of these strategies are hard to quantify and measure, they have
4. K. Perset and D. Ypsilanti, OECD, “Internet Address Space: Economic Considerations in the transition from IPv4 to IPv6,” http://www.itaa.org/upload/es/docs/
OECD%20Economic%20Considerations%20in%20the%20IPv4%20to%20IPv6%20Transition.pdf.
5. See the Cisco Systems white paper “IPv6 and National Strategies on Information and Communi- cation Technologies” (Sept. 2005), http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/iosswrel/ps6537/ ps6553/prod_white_paper0900aecd8032b2ad.html.
been successful both in raising IPv6 awareness despite market reluctance and in positioning countries as leaders in IPv6 knowledge, planning, and deployment.