Verio: IPv6 Furthering Home Networking Vision

This is one of many potential services that Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) stands to make a reality, particularly in the home networking space.

"With home networking, the vision is that appliances will be Internet-enabled," said Cody Christman, director of product marketing at Verio, a division of NTT, at the show. "For that to come true, we obviously need more [user] addresses in the space. V6 offers this, and security is more inherent."

IPv6 is backward-compatible with IPv4, enhances data security and increases user address space to 128 bits from 32. The update also supports Quality of Service (QoS) for realtime audio and video.

NTT/Verio unveiled the precommercial launch of IPv6 native services and an IPv6 tunneling service in which customers get a standard Internet IPv4 connection from Verio with the ability to tunnel IPv6 traffic over that existing IPv4 connection.

While the ability to remotely turn on an oven using a handheld is some time away, work is already under way in the R&D and educational spaces, said Christman.

Verio is working with a company that's developing a streaming multimedia application and with a consultant who was hired by a large shipping company that's trying to combine networks and add more address space via IPv6.

"Right now, companies are developing next-generation Ipv6 applications, but demand won't be for another few years when some applications and devices native to IPv6 are available and demand will start coming from the users," Christman said.