In a keynote address delivered this morning to the U.S. IPv6 Summit in Reston, Va., IEEE-USA President Gerard A. Alphonse urged participants to raise widespread adoption of the Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) by Japan, China, Korea and other Asian countries as an issue in the current national policy discussion on U.S. competitiveness and innovation policy.
"Despite its importance, breadth, and all the potential services it will enable worldwide, the current high-level debate has not identified IPv6 as an innovation opportunity of national significance," Dr. Alphonse said. He added: "That's unfortunate because we know that Asian, European and other nations are working very diligently on IPv6, or are even seeking dominance in setting its standards."
While praising a recent government directive requiring federal agencies to adopt IPv6 implementation plans, the IEEE-USA president cautioned: "We shouldn't kid ourselves that the Office of Management and Budget's directive is the same as a national vision, mission and action plan for the United States, and equivalent to the plans already in place in Japan, China and Korea."