General

Japanese IPv6 Initiative
Harbinger Of Things To Come

IPv6 may be sputtering to a slow start in North America, but throughout Japan, the push to make IPv6 a reality is on. Is this the precursor of things to come for North America and the rest of the world?

by Jim Thompson [July 10, 2001]

The speed of the rollout of IPv6 in Japan is nothing short of amazing. IPv6 projects in the land of the rising sun include connecting vehicles and kitchen appliances to the Internet, Nokia demonstrating its MobileIPv6 technology and Sony envisioning a day when IPv6 will provide the key for all types of media, including broadcasting, to be Internet-enabled.

The Yokohama experiment
Just outside Tokyo, in Yokohama, more than 300 taxis, public buses, and delivery trucks have been involved in an Internet experiment since February. Continuously connected to the Internet, the wired vehicles communicate with one another in a system that called 'real space' networking.

The vehicles track traffic conditions by monitoring speed, read road conditions by tracking the number of times the brakes are applied and watch the weather by observing windshield wipers.

The pilot project is called real space networking because it lets users connect to real devices within the network instead of those that are just out on the network somewhere in cyberspace.

The project developers see a day when all vehicles in Japan will have an individual IP address, something that will only be possible with IPv6. In their view, the new protocol will allow the Internet to have unique, global addresses that will provide the basis for direct, one-to-one connections. Real space networking is seen as one of the first steps in bringing IPv6 to the attention of the public.

Toshiba's smart kitchen
Toshiba Corp. is pushing the use of IPv6 with their concept of a smart kitchen. Giving every kitchen appliance an IP address makes maintenance and monitoring instantly possible.

Executives at Toshiba are working toward a day when you can look at the contents of your refrigerator via a cell phone while walking the aisles of the supermarket or when potential problems can be repaired before they even happen. Again, to make this possible, the extended address space offered by IPv6 is critical.

The President and COO of Sony Corporation, Kunitake Ando, sees IPv6 paving the way for the day when all media along with all appliances and devices in the home and the car will be connected to one another over the Internet. In an interview with Nikkei NetBusiness, Ando noted that, "the trend is the IP and nothing else."

As an example of their commitment to IP, SkyPerfecTV!, a cable television service financed by Sony, plans to broadcast over the broadband network using IP. The multimedia company has also launched Air Board, a new product that allows users to watch TV programs while accessing the Internet anytime, anywhere.

An IP address for every radio
Sony put a punctuation mark on its belief in IPv6 at the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas last April, when it announced that every product it manufactures for home or business use will have an assigned IP address.

Japan's Ministry of Public Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications appears to agree that IP is the wave of the future for broadcasting. The Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications Communications Research Laboratory (CRL), has constructed a GbE/10GbE-based next IPv6 test network, in cooperation with industry and academia.

The Japanese government has even mandated the incorporation of IPv6 and set a deadline of 2005 to upgrade existing systems.

Another Japanese giant, Hitachi Ltd., has also made its support for IPv6 clear. Through the Hitachi IPv6 Network Solution, the company offers a variety of support and consulting services for those who want to build IPv6 networks or who want to converge IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Additionally, they announced that their new GR2000 gigabit router series that is capable of IPv6 routing will ship in September.

Telecom equipment maker Nokia has demonstrated its MobilIPv6 technology and NTT launched the first native IPv6 backbone in April of this year.

The explosion of applications and support for IPv6 in Japan and the growing interest surfacing in Europe, is in dramatic contrast to the who cares attitude toward the protocol that generally prevails in North America.

A lack of deployed applications for IPv6 and a feeling that if it ain't broke, why fix it, has lulled many into the belief that it may be a long time before IPv6 gains any respect and is widely deployed. But, with pressure mounting from both Japan and Europe, the U.S. and Canada may soon find itself playing catch up with wireless technologies once again.

—End