Why is IPv6 important for public sector?

Created:

Today I was invited to IPv6 Forum in Norway that had an excellent meeting in Oslo. Unfortunately, due to travel complications, I could only stay for half of the first day of two. Lots of speakers where on the list that I would have liked to listen to. The short time I was there I had plenty of good exchange of ideas with various people. Both from private and public sector. Both friends and people I think I have never met before.

The actual presentation you can find here: IPv6 - governments.

In short, it is important that public e-services do support IPv6 the day the first end user on the Internet that is to use the service have only an IPv6 address. Although the access provider will have services that make it possible for the IPv6 only end node to access IPv4 only nodes and services, it is my view that public e-services can not always rely on those. What if the service that is launched does not work over for example NAT64? Everyone believe it should work but…is that risk ok?

Another big argument is of course that from a regulative perspective it is important competition (and because of that e2e architecture) is still effective, and higher number of NAT-like functions might make that problematic. Because of this, having public sector as an early user of IPv6 as a buyer and user of the services is a more effective mechanism than later enforce it (carrot is better tool than whip).

In the presentation you find it a bit more structured – or not. At least explained in a different way.