AfriNIC
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“Because of the rapid expansion of the mobile Internet in Africa, the future of the Internet in the region lies in immediate IPv6 planning by all stakeholders in both the private and public sectors.” |
Protect the Internet’s future in Africa
Planning ahead for IPv6
Adiel A. Akplogan
CEO of the African Regional Internet Registry (AfriNIC) Internet growth in Africa is currently facing a serious threat. In fact, a great deal of the continent’s economic development relies on addressing this threat as quickly and effectively as possible. The threat exists for most of the world’s countries and continents, but it is particularly acute for Africa.
When the Internet was designed, allowance was made globally for some four billion Internet protocol (IP) addresses. Known as IPv4 addresses (for version 4 of the protocol), these are numerical identifications that are assigned to devices participating in a computer network utilizing the Internet protocol for communication.
Fast forward to today, and 85 per cent of these addresses have already been allocated or reserved, which means that around 2011, the world will run out of unallocated addresses altogether. In the absence of further alternative addresses, the Internet would effectively “hit a wall,” whereby further growth would be restricted.
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AfriNIC is a non-governmental, not-for-profit, membership-based organization, with headquarters in Mauritius. It is the Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources for Africa, alongside the four other regional Internet registries (RIR) across the world: RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC and LACNIC. The mission of AfriNIC is “to serve the African community by providing professional and efficient management of Internet number resources, supporting Internet technology usage and development, and promoting Internet self-governance.”
The AfriNIC organisational structure encourages a bottom-up self-governance management model. Policies and other organizational functions are determined by the community in general and members who elect representatives to the Board of Directors. Further information is available at
www.afrinic.net
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Overall, AfriNIC has allocated 20 million IP addresses thus far. Alongside relatively low broadband access and uptake, there has been a rapid rise in the use of mobile technologies on the continent, which has accelerated the use of the Internet protocol and IPv4 addresses, and in turn will hasten the depletion of its pool.
Predictions by AfriNIC, and the four other regional Internet registries across the globe, now show that IPv4 addresses allocated for Africa are likely to run out far earlier than the global 2011 estimate, and failure to tackle this issue will undoubtedly hamper Internet development and innovation, as well as economic growth, for African nations.
IPv4 figures for Africa highlight that the economic possibilities of effective Internet adoption should not be underestimated for the region. In terms of IP address distribution, Africa currently holds only 2 per cent of the global IPv4 address space, whilst over the last two years, the region has seen more than 100-per-cent growth in requests for IPv4 addresses. Several African countries have experienced triple-digit growth rates in Internet usage over the past few years. Reliance on mobile devices for Internet access, combined with a vast latent demand for the mobile Internet, means that the future of the Internet in Africa now relies on quick adoption of the next generation of IP addresses, known as IPv6.
In contrast to IPv4, the pool of available IPv6 addresses exceeds an unimaginable 340 trillion, trillion, trillion. With such a large percentage of IPv4 addresses already allocated or reserved, AfriNIC recently urged national governments across the continent to get involved in tackling the issue, whilst urging telecommunication operators to set up a dedicated task force to start planning IPv6 implementation.
Mobile uptake and IPv6
A significant proportion of recently allocated IPv4 addresses arose from mobile operators moving from private to public IPv4 addresses to meet data-service demand. Reliance on mobile devices for Internet access in the region should be at the forefront of government and business leaders' thinking and the deployment of IPv6 will be a vital factor in these developments.
Much of Africa’s economic development will rely on getting this right as quickly and effectively as possible. Uptake of IPv6 is predicted to be more rapid than its IPv4 sibling; however, governments and telecommunication operators must play a key role in this. Africa’s Internet growth depends on the deployment of IPv6, so government and telecommunication operators must lead by example in making content available in IPv6.
For effective IPv6 deployment, policy-makers must insist on IPv6 compliance for public and private infrastructure. One way to achieve this is by ensuring that imported telecommunication equipment and applications are IPv6-compliant. Many older pieces of equipment cannot address the IPv6 standards, and depend on using the older IPv4 protocol. In response, a number of organizations have imposed a rule that all new equipment must be IPv6-ready.
Training for Internet stakeholders is also needed to raise awareness of IPv6. Free access to training courses will help organizations migrate to IPv6 effectively. AfriNIC has already provided free training to network operators in more than 30 African countries, and this has contributed to a 400-per-cent increase in the quantity of IPv6 allocation in the region.
Planning is needed now
The key to a timely and seamless conversion lies in successful planning, with evaluation starting from the core infrastructure areas and finally through to the edge of the network. By examining the operational chain, it is possible to identify where IP is involved, and where the adoption of new, IPv6-ready hardware or software is required. Additionally, by evaluating equipment compatibility early on, the upgrade process can begin and stakeholders will gain a sound overview of the needs and adaptability of the supply chain.
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Ultimately, Africa needs to learn the lessons from other regions such as Asia, and adapt specific best practices for its own region. RIPE NCC, the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, has also recently urged business and government leaders to ease the path for wider deployment of IPv6 addresses in their service region.
IPv6 will bring a host of important benefits to African mobile Internet use. The protocol builds on experience with IPv4 and it now contains features that allow much easier access. As an example, security is embedded in IPv6 and it is possible to natively secure IPv6 data. This means that there is a vast scope for the development of applications around it, as it will be possible to safely encrypt data whilst on the move. The fact that IPv6 also has mobility embedded within it means that the point will come where IP addresses will become part of users’ identities and it will be possible to reach someone on any device on the same IP address.
Although Africa holds a small proportion of the world’s IP addresses, it is encouraging to see progressive momentum towards the new protocol. The region is, in fact, showing the widest adoption of the new protocol globally and this is encouraging news. However, more work is required to ensure timely and continent-wide IPv6 adoption.
In addition to managing and distributing Internet number resources, AfriNIC supports Internet development across the continent, with the aim of strengthening Internet self-governance and encouraging a participative policy development process. For effective IPv6 deployment, policy-makers must take action now to make IPv6 compliance a requirement for public and private infrastructure. The need to ensure imported telecommunication equipment and applications are IPv6-compliant is another critical factor. Radical thinking is needed by telecommunication operators. Because of the rapid expansion of the mobile Internet in Africa, the future of the Internet in the region lies in immediate IPv6 planning by all stakeholders in both the private and public sectors. It is imperative that they start to plan a continent-wide IPv6 implementation.
Although AfriNIC has increased the quantity of IPv6 allocation in the region four-fold, this still represents only about 26 per cent of the networks using IPv4 in the AfriNIC service region. Daily statistics show that less than 30 per cent of IPv6 allocations are visible on the Internet. Strong steps are being taken in the right direction, but the path is still long and requires collective responsibility.
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