An article by Alexis de Goriainoff, co-founder and CEO of Sewan Groupe
A few weeks ago, Arcep, as the French telecom regulator, once again warned, and rightly so, about the slow deployment of the IPv6 protocol in France. While we have been turning a deaf ear for almost 24 years now, the consequences are becoming heavier and more serious, firstly for operators, but also for users.
To get a clearer picture, let's look back over the past two decades with an IPv4 protocol that is already on the shelf. As a registration for devices connected to the Internet (computer, tablet, phone, etc.), each IP address is a unique number sequence. Although billions of combinations are possible, the IPv4 protocol was already showing signs of exhaustion in the 2000s. And with good reason: if we combine the explosion in the democratisation of the Internet with the exponential multiplication of individual equipment, the conclusion is clear: the reserve of IP addresses will soon be exhausted! With this in mind, researchers have come up with the IPv6 protocol as a replacement. Yes, but. There is a but: despite all the best intentions in the world, they were not satisfied with an extension of the numbers, but added various functionalities to this system. Many of these features were relevant at the time, but are now obsolete and make it very difficult for hardware and other websites to convert to the life-saving IPv6.
So here we are, 24 years after the launch of IPv6 addresses, whose worldwide deployment remains particularly slow. What can we learn from this? A first consequence for our citizens, not very tangible but nevertheless essential: a colossal brake on telecom innovation. The depletion of the IP stock has in fact led to the creation of a "grey" market, a trading place for "second-hand" IP addresses. According to Arcep, operators sell and resell batches of IP addresses at prices of up to 60 dollars per unit! Knowing that the addresses were initially distributed free of charge, this implies that a new player in the sector, however innovative, will be forced to invest huge sums of money to be able to provide IP addresses to its customers... These forced investments are blocking and prevent the player from deploying, and ultimately from challenging its market, which is still pre-empted by the large historical players. Worse still, a mechanism of risky speculation on these IPv4s, which have become rare commodities, ensues. This situation is all the more unbalanced because when IPv6 finally takes the lead, these IPv4 addresses will no longer be worth anything.
Another consequence, more visible to users, is the need to share IP addresses. In other words, the shortage of addresses has also led operators to force the sharing of a single address between several Internet users, without them being aware of it of course. The result can be more than problematic, ranging from simple bugs for certain applications to real legal imbroglios when an address has pointed to reprehensible use of online content.
So, what about the necessary (re)construction of tomorrow's web? If there are any, it is certain that they belong more to the goodwill of the web actors than to any incentive or alarmist mechanism. This is why I wanted to appeal to the responsibility of those who can change things today.
First of all, one would like to mention the operators. It goes without saying that they must provide their users with IPv6, but they are also obliged to add IPv4, otherwise three quarters of the Internet would be inaccessible to them. This is where the problem lies and where the snake keeps biting its own tail.
Tomorrow, efforts must be concentrated on web content publishers to make their sites accessible in IPv6. A manoeuvre that will certainly mobilise the CIOs for a few days, but which will ultimately contribute to collectively resolving a nonsense that has been going on for nearly 25 years...
Finally, the leading search engine could also have a role to play! Following the example of the sanctions that it was able to apply when the "https" protocol was generalised at the time (downgrading in the results page), the giant has the cards in its hand to accelerate the pace. What is the interest for the giant, you may ask? Neither immediately nor personally. The Internet was built by collective ideas oriented towards the common good, by independent regulators and researchers, and by a constant quest for innovation; we can only count on the disinterested and visionary consideration of tomorrow's web actors on this subject.