True, Cisco jointly promote new Internet protocol

IPv6 aims to succeed IPv4, which is the communications protocol currently in use to direct almost all Internet traffic. IPv6 will allow the World Wide Web to support many more devices by greatly increasing the number of possible addresses.

The latest version offers features that allow it to keep up with the speed of the Internet and the millions of users. There are more encryption and authentication options in IPv6, which ensure that networks are overall much more secure and cannot be hacked or compromised. It has a larger address space, which means that there are more addresses available per person through an improvement in significant bits to 128 from 32 in v4.

Tanapon Chandavasu, deputy director of True Internet, said the firm had prepared its infrastructure to support IPv6 seven years ago. It now will encourage its corporate customers to integrate and upgrade their network equipment, hardware and software to support IPv6, since this version is the next generation of Internet protocol that enables any gadget or device to connect to the Web. The company this year has also budgeted about Bt100 million to upgrade information and network infrastructure to improve the quality of its services to customers.

Tatchapol Poshyanonoda, managing director of Cisco Systems Thailand, said the sectors in urgent need of integrating or upgrading to IPv6 were education, banking and finance. Internet service providers will also have to be able to provide new services and develop new applications based on IPv6.

Cisco expects that businesses this year will spend Bt20 billion to Bt30 billion to upgrade and integrate their existing IPv4 network equipment into IPv6. The investment will continue over the next several years.

Prodpran Siritheerasas, director of the Information Processing Institute for Education and Development at Thammasat University, said that for Windows-based hardware or computers to support IPv6, they had to be based on at least the Windows XP 3 operating system. Macs have been enabled for IPv6 since OS X 10.3, and earlier versions can be upgraded, according to Apple’s support website.

IPv6 also comes with high security, which will increase the confidence of Internet users to access the Web, since the new protocol allows information-technology administrators to identify users over the network.