IGF 2019 – Day 3 – Raum III – WS #421 IPv6: Why should I care?

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Fourteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Berlin, Germany, from 25 to 29 November 2019. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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>> MODERATOR: Hello, everyone. Thank you for coming for this workshop called IP have 6, why should I care. Together with Eduardo, we will be the moderators for this session.ly be the onsite moderator and Eduardo will be the on-line moderator.

So, what is our goal for this workshop? Our goal is to raise awareness to issues that related to digital inclusion, internet users might face in the future deployment of IP have 6. So this is an important session for you to be here and discuss the IP have 6 with everyone.

So far this session, we had three panelists from the tech community, we have Mr. Mukom Akong Tamon from AAPFRINIC. And the European point of view about this issue. And Mr. Antonio Moreiras with the South American point of view about IP have 6.

So, the agenda for the workshop, we have just 30 minutes so, we'll be -- we need to be very tight in the schedule. The opening, I'm doing right now. I will give the instructions for this tutorial which will be a quiz.

So, it's a three-question quiz that we have six minutes for each question. One minute to answer each question. And each panelist will have five minutes to discuss each question -- each one. After this, we will have an open mic with the remaining time, and finally the wrap-up and conclusions.

So, for this quiz, we do what we've done in the beginning so we use a platform called SLIDO. In order to use this platform, you have to access slide.do and enter the code IPv6. So, for this question, we'll start with Mr. Tamon for the first question. And we will project it here so you can access this quiz.

So, we'll give you one minute to answer the first question. And afterwards, Mr. Tamon will discuss results with everyone. If someone has trouble using SLIDO, we can help by delivering the instructions on paper.

>> MODERATOR: Okay, Mr. Tamon, you have five minutes to answer this question.

>> MUKOM AKONG TAMON: Thank you. The results are not surprising but it's a classic example. So, if you look we have this amazing body, that body that it has, is it because the stream or because of the body they're able to stream well. So, an example of what's happening here?

So, when we talk about the digital inclusion, they are about five key pillars, three of which are relevant to the issue of transition. One of the pluses is affordable and robust broadband infrastructure. So, we find the most important thing here, economic viability of the broadband service and the quality of the infrastructure. So, I don't expect have 4 to v6 transition to make an impact here.

If the government is stepping into some kind of a -- some kind of endeavor to bring people in, it has to be economically viable. It's a lot more important than IPv6. It indicates all around the world when the low broadband, low infrastructure pretty much uses that. The exact same things that happened to in after Africa, in the other part of the world, what happened in the most advanced economies that have broadband and use -- now, the second aspect of the inclusion is internet services. Internet enabled devices that meet the needs of the user.

Now, almost every end user device that's made in the last three to five years, or IPv6, the question goes to economics, how much does it cost? I know there are different programs to try to get android devices at less than $60. That might still be expensive for some people. And quite frankly, that might not be the biggest priority. The biggest concern for us is people who are most with the device changing it every three to five years is not a priority for them. And so we're much more at risk at, you know, dumping devices that have been used in more advanced economies being dumped on to the continent, which, then, has this perverse effect of, you know, making it difficult to get IPv6.

Then the last thing I think has the highest impact on the transition is going to be applications that are designed to enable and encourage self-sufficiency. And a particular aspect of IPv6 is the end-to-end capability. And if such devices are created like the ability to, you know, remotely access some device in your house, maybe turn off the fridge, any region in the world that hasn't moved to IPv6, be it in Africa or be it in Europe behind several greats, it's going to suffer.

So, in a nutshell, I think digital inclusion, the bigger effect is from the perspective and given that most of the world uses -- it's a bit simplistic to look at it from original perspective rather than the adoption of some technological standards that are deploying broadband to users. That's my perspective. If you have ideas, I'll take them. -- if you have questions, I'll take them.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Tamon. Now will you proceed to the next question? One more minute for you to answer. Then Mr. Hogewoning will discuss.

>> MODERATOR: Okay, Mr. Hogewoning, you can start.

>> MARCO HOGEWONING: Thank you, good afternoon, everybody. An interesting result. Some end users still believe they're fine. That's interesting. But, yeah, I will tell you that I would let you talk you through some of this why this is. Start with the basic problem that we're trying to solve is that IPv4 only has 4 billion addresses and way more than 4 billion people in this world let alone if you count all of their devices.

The question then becomes, what do you do? Because, like all other internet registries, it's also run out in Oshkosh, but unfortunately, I can't give you any IPGv4 because I don't have too many more.  And in that scenario, there are basically two options. One of them, and Mukom talked about it. It's very sharing.

If you don't have your own address, maybe you can share it. That's the technique that Mukom talked about, carrier grade net where I use -- to exit the internet with multiple users and effect we're using that right now here in our GIF network as well. So, I can kind of see why you -- from the usual perspective think like everything is fine. Because, yes, here, your internet works. The bigger trouble is realizing what you might miss out on future developments. We talked about the internet with an open platform that supports rapid integration. But with those nets, you should limit your options in what you can do and what you cannot do. And earlier we talked about the webification of the nets. Most that you see these days has turned to web applications and one reason is it kind of forces you to that model. It's very hard to set up direct communication.

So, while you might not lose anything, you might miss out on the future options of the internet. That's sharing. Of course, the other part is where you might encourage other people to show you -- we know there are still organizations that may have more addresses right now than there needs. And those exchange hands. There's an active market in IPv4 addresses.

But it comes at a cost. Rough estimate, $25 or $30 for IP address. Think about it, if your internet provider has to shell out $30 just to get you to the address to connect you to the internet, what does that do to your price, do you think?

So, as the options go, price increases will happen. It goes for net. It's fancy equipment and it's really good these days. But it comes at a cost. These are big boxes. You can connect hundreds of thousands of users in the system that shares addresses. You're talking millions and millions of hardware that your provider has to buy because he has to use IPv4. He chooses only to use that because then it's like the moment you move to IPv6 is there's a lot of traffic already can be done over IPv6. The big content providers, YouTube, Netflix, all support IPv6. So even while the whole internet is not IPv6 yet, the moment you switch on IPv6, you see an immediate benefit for your users. You see an immediate speed increase because you no longer rely on network address translation.

There's things we can do with smaller boxes, which are cheaper. So, it's often not like, yeah, right now, where you sit in an IPv4 only world, everything looks fine. But once you step over that line and you go to IPv6, yule of a sudden unlock a world of possibilities. It's faster, it's cheaper. And what I often see from the user perspective is the frog in the boiling water. You don't know what you're missing out on because you don't see what the possibilities are for IPv6. I'll leave it here and we can come back to questions later, I think. Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Hogewoning. The last question, one more minute to answer and afterwards, we'll discuss it.

>> MODERATOR: Okay, Mr. Moreiras, you can start your discussion.

>> Antonio Marco Moreiras: Greetings, everyone. I'm speaking here in my capacity as a person, as an internet person, and as an engineer.

The -- it's very good to see you here. And it's good to see you're interested in IPv6 because not everyone can see the importance of IPv6 yet. You can see the IGF network, the Wi-Fi network, we're using internet connectivity that we have here is limited. We do not have IPv6 connectivity.

Is this totally unexpected in the internet government forum network. It's really a shame. Well, so the question -- in the next five years, you have been to inclusion related to IPv6. This seems to be -- it seems to be a difficult question but it's not. The answer is, in fact, it really, really very easy and simple, straightforward, and in a few moments, I will give it to you. Now, I invite you to think about the future we want in the internet.

Do we want one net? One single world-wide network, centralize it, compose better networks and forming one single and one wonderful global network? If so, technically, we cannot rely only on IPv4 because it's exhausted and lit be impossible to use IPv4 to connect our people, our organizations, our communities, and our things.

And if we think about it, they have prices, high prices. We have permitted -- we have allowed instead of limited number research that had to be globally managed, IPv4 addresses have now became goal. And that's a new -- it's a new -- through the internet. If we want one net, we don't want to be the main technical solution that you bring connectivity for today and connected half of the world. In a technical sense, make the networks more isolated. The internet with not, and with CG not, it's more difficult for applications to communicate. The software has to be more elaborated, more expensive. And in some cases, the communication is almost impossible.

Today we have communications and failures.

In 2018 last year, we organized a panel here in the IGF to discuss the difficulties that some internet users are facing to play on-line games and lack because of IPv6 support. We choose to talk about the games because it's an important industry, it moves a lot of money. But the complexity and the connectivity problems we have today because of CG does not affect a wide range of professionals on the internet.

If we want one net, you have to consider that the emerging internet of thing, you need full connectivity. Easy connectivity, inexpensive connective ty. Digital inclusion is about bringing connectivity to people. And why not to the thing s but more than that, it's about enabling people to use the internet in a significant way to them. The best possible way, in the way that we'll improve their daily lives and their world.

So have one net, one full network, the internet in its total capacity, the best internet possible, today we do need IPv6. So, what was that simple answer? What -- we happen with the digital inclusion related to IPv6 in the next five years? Well, until it happens, what we want to -- it will happen what we work for, we, the organizers and speakers in this session, we are working actively to foster IPv6 deployment. We're talking to people; we're teaching and training the technical community. We are showing the economics of the situation through the management of the companies. We're deploying IPv6. In the last ten years, nick.br, the organization I work for in Brazil has provided more than 200IPv6 streaming classes free of charge. We have 6,000 professionals in Brazil. We organized events and coordination meetings. We are getting results.

The answer is easy. We want one net. We want the better internet possible for everyone and everything. We want more digital inclusion. And to have this, the internet needs IPv6. Then we'll have all of this and we'll have IPv6 deployed to all of the internet.

So, I -- you ask -- infinitely more difficult question, what kind of the internet do you want? What will you do for it? And that's it.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, very much, Mr. Moreiras. We'll start the open mic session. So, if anyone wants to ask a question or to make a comment, please?

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: I see the problem. We change your mind. Start now and see the problem space.

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello? My name is Constance from the Ministry of the Interior of Germany. We're going to deploy for the public administration of Germany. For my opinion, that's not the question of if, it's the question of how? And which kind of way we want to implement it.

For my perspective, the decline of IPv6 and the governments are a bit different than the way ISPs are going to deploy IPv6. And so, we have to think about more organizational stuff and standardization, and we have to talk with each other. We have we have a federal system. And this belongs also for us, for a good deployment, and for a good future infrastructure. So, we are absolutely convinced that we have to go forward.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Mrs. Constance. Do any panelists want to make a comment?

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hello. I'm from France. Thank you very much for this panel. I agree with most of the things that have been said. Like just to come back for the issue of price. The price is not related to the -- the price is related to the fact that I think of not getting rid of IPv4 especially on fixed lines, etc., because the price will carry on. We always need IPv4 if it's not generalized and we have so far from this point from here. So, if you have some forecasts or some ideas regarding to this, I take.

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Predicting the internet is always hard. If you look at the market dynamic, the prices increase, scarcity increases, prices will go up. To get your internet registry is virtually for free. The deployment at costs. There will always be deploying IPv6. What we expect will happen is the sooner or later the price of IPv4 will outweigh the deployment of IPv6. If you take a very market approach, the reason IPv6 is not deployed because it's probably still more expensive than it is to stick with IPv4. And in that sense, the scarcity will drive the price to a point where we will do that and doing IPV6 is the cheaper option. I was not expecting it to happen on the global scale you see more local markets like here in Germany, users are IPv6. 60% of the users will come in which might make deploying that a more feasible option than for countries like Deb Mark where hardly anybody uses IPv6 at the moment. Global, eventually. We kind of hope and expect that IPv4 will disappear because IPv6 is the cheaper option for a provider.

>> MODERATOR: It's a very present matter. Even for the technical community, always has been an important matter. I think with this workshop, it's true, maybe to other people that aren't for the community, but also realize that IPv6 is important for them, even if they don't fully understand the issue. But this workshop has this proposal. And I hope everyone here had a good time. I would like to thank the panelists for coming here and discussing this matter with us. I would like to thank you all, the audience, for just the participation. So, thank you very much for this session. And I hope to see you again.

[ Applause ]