The “deployment” of IPv6 in Vietnam has been going slowly because of the reluctance of enterprises, especially digital content firms.

The “deployment” of IPv6 in Vietnam has been going slowly because of the reluctance of enterprises, especially digital content firms.

According to Nguyen Hong Thang, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Internet Network Information Center (VNNIC), one year after the Internet service providers (ISP), together with more than 3,000 websites, including the leading websites on Alexa ranking such as Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Bing, began shifting to use IPv6 addresses by default since June 6, 2012, the number of IPv6 users in the world has been increasing rapidly.

In Asia Pacific, the first region which had IPv4 addresses exhausted in the world has increased by 16-20 percent. In the US, the number of IPv6 users has increased from 0.6 percent to 2.5 percent, or 6 million users. Of these, 26.25 percent of customers now use the wireless network of Verizon which is utilizing IPv6.

A report in 2012 showed that 12 percent of the Vietnamese network was capable to get adapted to IPv6 flow. However, thang said, the actual number of IPv6 users remains very low, reaching the highest peak of 0.04 percent in January 2012.

The big guys’ actions would help stimulate the demand

Vu The Binh, General Director of Netnam, has attributed the slow deployment of IPv6 to the low readiness of businesses to IPv6, especially from digital content firms.

However, FPT Online/FPT Telecom, VTC Online, the big guys in the field, have move ahead with the deployment of IPv6 recently.

Phan Anh Tuan, Technology Director of VTC Online, said in April 2013, VTC Online began providing the dual stack IPv6 and IPv4 on all of its online services, from online games, e-commerce, social networks, and film watching to music service.

“The 20 million customers of VTC Online, which account for 2/3 of Internet users in Vietnam, now can access to the company’s services through IPv6 addresses,” Tuan stated.

Also according to Tuan, the “turning on” of IPv6 addresses soon would help VTC Online fix the problems to be arisen immediately, as the number of IPv6 users is still low.

VTC Online plans the early IPv6 deployment because it can foresee that hardware manufacturers would launch the equipments which can only run on IPv6.

A representative of FPT Telecom said the firm has turned on IPv6 for some services being provided to customers, such as online games, e-paper, Fshare – an online storage service, or FPT Play HD device.

When asked who will have to shift to IPv6 first, content providers (CP) or Internet service providers (ISP), Thang said both of them need to do this at the same time. The shifting to IPv6 not only can provide more space when IPv4 addresses have run out, but also can serve the Internet sustainable development, when the increase of the Internet connection devices has created a new information environment.

Experts believe that with the stronger commitment and participation of digital content firms which have large Internet users’ communities (Go.vn, Vnexpress…), such as FPT Online/FPT Telecom, VTC Online, Vietnam would witness the sharp rise in the number of IPv6 in Vietnam, the thing which has occurred in the world with the participation of Facebook and Google.

In the latest news, May 6, 2013 has been chosen as the Vietnamese IPv6 Day.