Red tape "holding back" next-generation internet

European businesses are being held back from migrating to IP version 6 due to the way IP addresses are being allocated, according to the director of IT at the UK internet registrar, Nominet.

IPv6 will succeed the current version, IPv4, and because it uses a longer string of numbers for identification it promises many more IP addresses than are possible in IPv4.

The American Registry for Internet Numbers (ARIN) argues that because only 19 per cent of IPv4 address space remains available - and it is running out faster than expected - it was, for the first time, "compelled to advise the internet community that migration to IPv6 is necessary for any applications that require ongoing availability of contiguous IP number resources".

Dave Passmore, research director at Burton Group, said: "This issue will significantly affect all enterprise organisations with applications that require the ongoing availability of public IP addresses."

However, concerns have been raised about the way IPv6 addresses are currently allocated by RIPE, the European equivalent of ARIN, and it appears that this situation will not change for at least four months.

Nominet's IT director Jay Daley indicated that, unlike ARIN, RIPE was allowing only ISPs access to IPv6 addresses, leaving enterprises out in the cold.

He said: "We, for example, have our own IPv4 address allocation from RIPE but we are unable to get an IPv6 allocation because their current allocation policy means we must be an ISP who gives addresses out to at least 200 customers. We don't give addresses to customers - we are an enterprise, in the same way that a large enterprise might want their own address space for local management of internet connectivity."

Tim Chown, systems administrator for the University of Southampton's school of electronics and computer science and a member of the UK's IPv6 taskforce, agreed. He said that although the bulk of the hardware and software needed for IPv6 was already available, companies were currently unable to avoid being tied to an ISP when migrating to IPv6.

David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK