[AfrICANN-discuss] NEWS RELEASE: Major Websites Commit to 24-Hour Test Flight for IPv6

[Dawit Bekele]

"World IPv6 Day" to take place on June 8, 2011

 GENEVA, SWITZERLAND and RESTON, VIRGINIA, USA - 12 January 2011 - Facebook,
Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO), websites with more than one
billion combined visits each day, are joining major content delivery
networks Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) and Limelight Networks (NASDAQ: LLNW), and
the Internet Society, for the first global-scale trial of the new Internet
Protocol, IPv6. On June 8, 2011, dubbed "World IPv6 Day," participants will
enable IPv6 on their main services for 24 hours. With IPv4 addresses running
out this year, the industry must act quickly to accelerate full IPv6
adoption or risk increased costs and limited functionality online for
Internet users everywhere. The companies are coming together to help
motivate organizations across the industry-Internet service providers,
hardware manufacturers, operating system vendors and other web companies-to
prepare their services for the transition.

The Internet Society is supporting World IPv6 Day as part of its efforts to
accelerate IPv6 deployment. "2011 is a pivotal year in IPv6 deployment, and
World IPv6 Day will prove to be an important milestone," commented Leslie
Daigle, the Internet Society's Chief Internet Technology officer. "By
providing an opportunity for the Internet industry to collaborate to test
IPv6 readiness we expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale IPv6 adoption
and help make IPv6 ready for prime time. The greater the scope of the trial,
the more effective it will be for all participants so we wholeheartedly
welcome additional participants."

IPv6, the successor to the protocol currently used on the Internet, was
designed in the late 1990s but has not seen deployment on a global scale.
With IPv4 address space running out, the industry cannot afford to wait much
longer.

Vint Cerf, Google's Chief Internet Evangelist and co-inventor of the TCP/IP
protocol stack, commented, "In the short history of the Internet, the
transition to IPv6 is one of the most important steps we will take together
to protect the Internet as we know it. It's as if the Internet was
originally designed with a limited number of telephone numbers, and we're
soon going to run out." Google has offered a separate IPv6-only version of
search on  <http://ipv6.google.com/> ipv6.google.com since early 2008, and
during World IPv6 Day the company will enable IPv6 for its main websites,
including  <http://www.google.com/> www.google.com and
<http://www.youtube.com/> www.youtube.com.

Given the diversity of technology that powers the Internet, the global
nature of the trial is crucial to identify unforeseen problems.
"Participating in World IPv6 Day will allow us to obtain real-life data that
we can use to ensure a seamless user experience as we transition to IPv6,"
said Adam Bechtel, Vice President for Yahoo's Infrastructure Group. "We
welcome this opportunity to collaborate with the technical community and
provide leadership in addressing the scaling challenges facing the
Internet."

World IPv6 Day marks a key milestone in enabling more and more computers and
smart phones to come online. As more of the world moves online, IPv6 will be
critical for the Internet to reach its full potential as a catalyst for
growth, innovation and economic prosperity. IPv6 provides over four billion
times more addresses than IPv4, which will help connect the billions of
people not connected today.

Facebook views the rollout of IPv6 as a critically important step to keep
the world connected. "As an industry, we're working together to ensure
future generations continue to have open and direct access to the Internet
as we do today," said Jonathan Heiliger, Vice President of Technical
Operations at Facebook. "The number of web-connected devices is exploding,
and World IPv6 Day is a crucial step in ensuring they can all communicate."

Akamai Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: AKAM), a leading provider of cloud
optimization services, will enable customers to participate in World IPv6
Day. "IPv6 adoption is still in its infancy," said Harald Prokop, Senior
Vice President of Engineering at Akamai. "We stand ready to support
customers through this important trial, and believe that early planning and
testing will ensure a smooth transition to IPv6." To support the transition
to IPv6, Akamai customers will be able to seamlessly make their existing
websites available via IPv6 without requiring disruptive changes to their
origin networking infrastructure.

Tom Coffeen, Director of Global Network Architecture for Limelight Networks,
said, "As part of our ongoing commitment to IPv6, Limelight Networks today
is actively delivering customer content over the world's first fully
IPv6-compliant content delivery service. We are pleased to participate in
World IPv6 Day to encourage the adoption of IPv6 across the Internet and to
transform address resource challenges into innovation and competitive
advantage for our customers."

One of the goals of World IPv6 Day is to expose potential issues under
controlled conditions and address them as soon as possible. The vast
majority of users should be able to access services as usual, but in rare
cases, misconfigured or misbehaving network equipment, particularly in home
networks, may impair access to participating websites during the trial.
Current estimates are that 0.05% of users may experience such problems, but
participating organizations will be working together with operating system
manufacturers, home router vendors and ISPs to minimize the number of users
affected. Participants will also be working together to provide tools to
detect problems and offer suggested fixes in advance of the trial.

For more information about World IPv6 Day, how to get involved, and links to
useful information for users, visit
<http://www.internetsociety.org/worldipv6day>
www.internetsociety.org/worldipv6day.

About the need for IPv6

IPv4 has approximately four billion IP addresses (the sequence of numbers
assigned to each Internet-connected device). The explosion in the number of
people, devices and web services on the Internet means that IPv4 is running
out of space. IPv6, the next-generation Internet protocol, which provides
over four billion times more space, will connect the billions of people not
connected today and will help ensure the Internet can continue its current
growth rate.

About the Internet Society

The Internet Society is a non-profit organisation founded in 1992 to provide
leadership in Internet-related standards, education and policy. It is
dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the
Internet for the benefit of people throughout the world. See
<http://www.internetsociety.org/> www.internetsociety.org

Leslie Daigle
Chief Internet Technology Officer
Internet Society
daigle at isoc.org

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Dawit Bekele, Regional Bureau Manager - Africa
< <mailto:bekele at isoc.org> bekele at isoc.org>
Tel: +251 911 22 13 33/+41 22 809 0363
<http://www.isoc.org> http://www.isoc.org
Internet Society (ISOC)
"The Internet is for everyone"
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