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The next US President is likely to be remembered for a technology issue presently ignored. John Curran – Jul 19, 2008 5:06 AM PST

The next President of the United States will be at the helm when the current supply of IPv4 addresses runs out, and all of the carriers, ISPs, and hosting firms have to switch to IPv6 to connect to customers. The potential for disruption to the high-tech economic engine is enormous, there are significant public policy and foreign relation aspects, and yet the Internet IPv6 transition presently receives no consideration on either candidate's technology agenda.

/John

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John -- what specifically should Kevin Werbach – Jul 20, 2008 6:15 AM PST

John—what specifically should the next Administration (or individual US government agencies) do to address the IPv6 transition?

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Kevin - We've reached the John Curran – Jul 20, 2008 7:00 AM PST

Kevin -

We've reached the point in time where US agencies need to make their public-facing websites and public-facing email servers reachable via IPv6. This is a relatively straightforward task, but requires time for planning and implementation if it is to be accomplished in a responsible and secure manner.

It is also important that the Administration establish a point in time beyond which funding for various Internet connectivity initiatives (e.g. rural connectivity, educational connectivity) is only provided for those Internet services which provide access to both IPv4-reachable and IPv6-reachable Internet resources (as opposed to only IPv4 resources which is the situation today).

The two steps above would insure that the Administration is moving along with industry in IPv6 deployment, and not hindering those ISP's and organizations that are doing the right thing by aggressively moving forward with IPv6 deployment.

There are certainly other actions that the Administration could take to hasten IPv6 adoption (as has been done in other countries), but such actions quickly move us into a political and philosophical discussion regarding market vs regulated technology adoption and therefore represent a policy area requiring significant public discourse.

/John

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Good article. I have something to add! Steve Hunt – Jul 19, 2008 2:32 PM PST

Thanks for this article. Adelstein said recently in an interview with Robert McChesney that the FCC oversees 1/6th of the US economy. To think that a potential President of The United States could turn his nose at that is very odd. I advise EVERYONE to buy serious puts on stocks like Google if he wins! Anyway, I was stunned at your kind words towards Powell, then I saw you are on Obama's advisory board and quickly realized nobody wants to be the next Samantha Power. I have no problem with that. Let the people say what Powell is, which is a man with only the interests of big business and a beyond myopic view of the world.

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Michael Powell Kevin Werbach – Jul 20, 2008 6:24 AM PST

Steve—the comments about Powell were genuine. I had the pleasure of working at the FCC when he was a Commissioner, and speaking with him several times as Chairman. Your assessment of him is unfair. It's true, though, that the Obama campaign is emphasizing the quaint notion that you can disagree with someone's policies without trying to personally destroy them. That goes to the cynicism I mentioned.

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reply Steve Hunt – Jul 20, 2008 7:12 AM PST

That is fair enough. I do of course recall the "Uncle Joe" phenomena from the history books! Anyway, lets just beat these guys and forget about all the nastiness. If they win, let the "fun" begin. Keep up the good work, glad I discovered this blog.

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