Korea’s IPv6 utilization rate was found to be even lower than that of developing country Bhutan, the 161st place country concerning GDP. Even though service constraint is upon us due to the depletion of IPv4, the government and businesses are all blind to this seriousness. Preparing support measures for the conversion inducement of small and Internet Service Providers(ISP) and Contents Service Providers(CSP) is urgent.
According to Cisco and Akamai on April 13th, Korea’s IPv6 utilization rate was 0.6%, 33rd place in the world ranking. The number of users were approximately 253 thousand. There was a 0.59% increase after Daum Kakao and SK Telecom had commercialized IPv6 in the mobile network. Assuming a total of 40 million Internet users, only a very small minority use IPv6.
The 32nd place was taken by Bhutan. Bhutan’s IPv6 utilization rate is 0.7%, the same as Brazil’s. The population being merely 750 thousand and having installed the Internet network belately, Bhutan’s IPv6 utilization rate has gotten relatively higher.
However seeing China, who ranked 28th with 0.9%, IPv6 utilization rates seem not to be so relevant to population. Although the US had the most IPv4, the IPv6 utilization rate was 13.2%(5th place).
According to the ‘2014 Research on the Actual Condition of Domestic IPv6 Readiness’ released by the Korea Internet and Security Agency(KISA) at the end of last year, Korea’s IPv6 readiness was quite high, with 68.9% of the subscriber network and 94.7% of the backbone network. Readiness refers to the status in which IPv6 is available whenever there are contents and service.
The reason for the low IPv6 utilization rate despite the high readiness is because small and medium-sized ISP and CSp are hesitating conversion. Cooperation of small and medium ISP is necessary to provide services in customer contact, and CSP have to produce the contents. They are reluctant to adopt IPv6 because of the economic burden resulting from IPv6 conversion, the lack of additional revenue, etc.
The seriousness of the lack of Internet addresses is influencing our daily lives. Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers(ICANN) announced the depletion of IPv4 in February, 2011. Korea is currently solving address problems by dealing existing addresses, using floating IP, etc. Internet address shortage phenomena including quota restrictions are occurring all over the world.
Many problems occur when we lack Internet addresses. Companies, failing to be allotted addresses for new services via the web, have restrictions. This leads to a falling-off in customer service quality. Above all, it becomes difficult to prepare for the Internet of Things(IoT) age, where one internet address is allotted per thing. This implies the impossibility of growth of related industries.
The government, recognizing such a problem, had a plan discussion meeting for IPv6 conversion last month.
Staff Reporter Ahn, Ho-cheon | hcan@etnews.com)