The Number Resource Organization (NRO), which represents the registries, said on Tuesday that less than 10 percent of all IPv4 addresses remain available, threatening the future network operations of all businesses and organisations unless ISPs and businesses step up their migration to IPv6.

Cisco and the Georgian Research and Educational Networking Association (GRENA) today announced the opening of the first laboratory for training and research in Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) in the Caucasus region. Cisco donated the lab's networking and communications equipment.

It is targeted to different types of readers, including end users, SOHO, enterprise, education and research networks, and ISPs. It also includes a section on how to deploy several IPv6 services.

This is jeopardising Internet growth and socio-economic development in these regions.

All computer and electronic devices that connect to the web and other online services uses Internet Protocol Addresses. The current Internet Protocol, IPv4, provides a limited number of such addresses. According to estimates will be exhausted by 2011. The new Internet Protocol, IPv6, allows every citizen and organization to have as many Internet Addresses as they need to connect every conceivable device to the Internet: mobile phones, car navigation systems, home appliances, industrial equipment, etc.

There is also a short "5 minutes" introduction to IPv6 "What is IPv6?", available only in English.

Bound was a Senior Fellow with HP, Chair of the North American IPv6 Task Force and CTO of the IPv6 Forum.

Detlef Eckert, senior advisor in the Directorate General Information Society and Media of the European Commission (EC), is today emphasising the crucial role of EU governments in leading the way to IPv6 migration, at a roundtable meeting for governments and regulators, hosted by the RIPE NCC.

This growth has been helped by the active promotion of IPv6 by the five RIRs and their communities; and developing economies, such as India, are playing an increasingly important role in generating demand for global IPv6 deployment.

Presenting research at the meeting, Japanese and South Korean professors announced a joint online collaboration and exchange program on Internet research between African and Asian technology experts.

Get to know how e-Infrastructures can open new frontiers for your business and research activities by allowing you to merge global resources and knowledge. Our Global e-Infrastructure team will be happy to answer all your questions and feed your curiosity.

At its Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy, held in Seoul, Korea, on Wednesday, the organisation said the switch to the new version of IP was necessary to connect billions of people to the internet. IPv4 addresses are quickly running out, so the signatories want to have the new version of the internet protocol, IPv6, adopted quickly. In one of the items in the declaration that is more political than technical, they call on governments and private companies that use a large number of IPv4 addresses to lead the switch over.

Kenya will embark on a plan to deploy IPv6 mainly through the national Network Operations Center (NOC) that is currently being setup, said Information and Communication Minister Samuel Poghisio in his keynote address. He added that NOC will support ongoing initiatives to encourage IPv6 deployment.

The objective of the Action Plan is the support of the widespread introduction of the next version of the Internet Protocol (IPv6).

"This is very much a case of a stitch in time saves nine", said Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media. "In the short term, businesses and public authorities might be tempted to try to squeeze their needs into the strait jacket of the old system, but this would mean Europe is badly placed to take advantage of the latest internet technology, and could face a crisis when the old system runs out of addresses."

The number of IP addresses, needed for Web sites, servers and PCs to communicate with one another over the Internet, is limited, and almost 85 percent of addresses are now in use. At the current rate of growth, the pool of available addresses will be exhausted by 2011.

The EU Commission will set this goal in a statement, to be published at the end of May, on the new internet protocol and progress in the net.

Detlef Eckert of the General Directorate for Information Society and Media presented the key points of the statement and a related action plan at the RIPE meeting in Berlin.

The Commission is joining organisations like the Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre (RIPE) in calling for rapid action in the face of dwindling reserves of IP addresses.

The main goal of the Communication is to promote IPv6 adoption through a wide range of actions encouraging public administration, users and industrial stakeholders to take decisive steps to accelerate the implementation of IPv6, so as to ensure Europe's readiness to face the expected depletion of the IPv4 addresses. Moreover, the prompt and efficient adoption of IPv6 offers Europe significant opportunities to boost innovation and develop a leading role in advancing the Internet.

The change comes as net governance organisation IANA adds AAAA records for the IPv6 addresses of six of the 13 root name servers, making it possible for two internet hosts to find each other without using the old IPv4 protocol.

The publication "Enabling efficient and operational mobility in large heterogeneous IP networks" includes a brief presentation of the project and some of the technical achievements, contributions to standardization work, and several selected papers related to the project work.

The change involves adding IPv6 address glue to a handful of the root DNS servers on the Internet and this is critical to allowing IPv6 only devices to be able to function properly in the future.

ICANN has written to the US Government asking to be released from an agreement under which it it answerable to the US Department of Commerce, which began delegating the responsibility for running the internet ten years ago.

The information about the streaming will be published in the workshop web page a few minutes before the start of the event.