Broadband Forum Supports World IPv6 Launch Day

Broadband Forum's IPv6 work continues, empowering world transition

ATLANTA, May 31, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Broadband Forum, the global organization focused on engineering smarter and faster broadband connections, is pleased to support this industry milestone as the world moves permanently to embrace IPv6 addressing. The Forum's IPv6 work plays a key role in helping the broadband industry prepare for the changeover set for World IPv6 Launch Day on June 6.

A year ago, the Forum issued BroadbandSuite™ 4.0 release, also known as the IPv6 Toolkit, which is a group of related specifications that enable the integration of the IPv6 addressing protocol into existing network and remote management platforms. It supports the migration to IPv6 throughout the network, from core to user in both fiber and DSL deployments and it makes it possible for networks to scale to address almost unlimited numbers of devices.

"The IPv6 Launch Day is a historic moment for our industry," said Broadband Forum CEO Robin Mersh. "IPv6 opens up a whole new era in communications – ensuring the exponential growth of online services and devices can continue unhampered.  Our task at the Broadband Forum is to help facilitate this transformation."

Since the release of BroadbandSuite 4.0, new work has focused specifically on developing transition options for network operations from IPv4 to IPv6. Working Text 242 "IPv6 Transition Mechanisms for Broadband Networks"[1] documents strategies for dealing with the transition. The working text, expected to complete later this year, includes strategies to standardize deployment of dual stack, and options to deal with IPv4 address space exhaustion.

Additional work has also begun on test cases for network equipment (BNG, RG, etc.) that perform one or more IPv6 transition mechanisms as defined in WT-242. The purpose of these tests is to verify the interoperability of network equipment based on requirements defined by WT-242.

"BroadbandSuite™ 4.0 was welcomed last year as a globally accepted reference on IPv6, ensuring that service providers can integrate IPv6 into their addressing protocols immediately, and as the number of devices grows exponentially - we stand ready to assist with the right tools and testing techniques to empower an efficient migration to this next generation of broadband networks," added Robin Mersh.

Broadband Forum is also proud to announce that the www.broadband-forum.org website is IPv6 capable. 

For further information about the Broadband Forum, to join the work or to access the latest free white papers and technical reports, please visit www.broadband-forum.org. 

For further information please contact Brian Dolby on +44 (0) 7899 914168 or Dana Corson on +44 (0) 16363 812152 or send an email to [email protected]  or [email protected].

About the Broadband Forum
Broadband Forum, a non-profit industry organization, is focused on engineering smarter and faster broadband connections. Our work defines best practices for global networks, enables service and content delivery, establishes technology migration strategies, engineers critical device & service management tools, and is key to redefining broadband.  Our free technical reports and white papers can be found at www.broadband-forum.org.

[1] Note:  Working Texts (WT) are documents in development, and are only available to Broadband Forum members.  Once approved, WT-242 will be publicly available as Technical Report 242 (TR-242).

SOURCE The Broadband Forum