Verizon ready to participate in World IPv6 Day

USA & BANGALORE, INDIA: Today, Verizon helps the industry mark an important Internet milestone by participating in the World IPv6 Day.

People around the world have been eagerly waiting to try the new Internet addressing system, which is called Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6. Verizon is expecting that many users will take advantage of the Internet Society’s (ISOC) World IPv6 Day “test flight,” which begins today at 8 p.m. ET (0000 Universal Coordinated Time). The company has made preparations to handle the increased traffic and to answer customers’ questions.

The current Internet addressing system, Internet Protocol version 4, which has been in place since the 1980s, eventually will be replaced by the new Internet protocol version 6 because the pool of IPv4 addresses is nearly depleted. The new IPv6 addressing system will expand the number of possible addresses from approximately 4 billion with IPv4 to roughly 340 trillion IPv6 addresses.

“World IPv6 Day marks an important industry milestone with the first global-scale trial of IPv6,” said Jean McManus, executive director of Verizon’s Corporate Technology organization. “Verizon was an early promoter and adopter of IPv6 back in the mid-1990s. It is very positive to see interest in IPv6 continuing to grow, and World IPv6 Day has just added to the IPv6 momentum.”

During the 24-hour test period, users with IPv6 connectivity to the Internet will be able to connect to two IPv6-enabled Verizon websites, http://ipv6.verizonbusiness.com and http://wwwv6.verizon.com/fiostvv6/web/. Users also can connect to the ISOC test site at http://test-ipv6.com/ to test their IPv6 hardware, software and operating systems.

Since using IPv6 technology will be new for some customers, Verizon has established a technical support team for World IPv6 Day to quickly address customer issues. Customers should follow their normal process to contact Verizon about service questions, and Verizon’s care centers for consumers and small-to-medium and large businesses will tap the company’s technical experts to answer customers’ questions specific to IPv6 activity.

“This day gives us a great opportunity to help educate our enterprise customers about how to enable their network infrastructure for future growth and discuss the numerous benefits of IPv6,” McManus said. “Companies will be able to expand their businesses and ensure long-term growth and scalability without being concerned about running out of IP addresses.”

Using IPv6 access to connect to FiOS TV Central
To further take advantage of World IPv6 day, Verizon will make its FiOS TV Central website available to subscribers with IPv6 access. Users who have IPv6 connectivity can access the FiOS TV Central site at http://wwwv6.verizon.com/fiostvv6/web/ between 8 p.m. Tuesday (June 7) and 7:59 p.m. Wednesday (June 8).

Both wireless and wireline users with IPv6 connectivity to the Internet should be able to reach the FiOS TV website.

FiOS TV Central allows subscribers to access a variety of features such as remote management of DVR settings and on-demand movies and TV. Those users who have FiOS TV online accounts and are interested in accessing details of their account will need to log in before proceeding to webpages that provide the FiOS TV Central features and controls.

“World IPv6 Day gives Verizon the opportunity to test drive some of the work we’ve been doing with applications and systems as part of our migration to IPv6”, said Ruchir Rodrigues, vice president of the Verizon Corporate Technology organization. “Our Verizon technology teams have worked for several weeks with internal groups like IT and engineering to make sure we have all components – data center, equipment, firewalls, security and operating systems -- IPv6-enabled for the test while not impacting any live production activity. Our systems are ready, and we are looking forward to customers connecting to our IPv6 websites.”

Verizon is already running IPv6 on its 4G LTE network, global public IP network and vBNS (very high-speed backbone network service) network.