The Department of Work and Pensions has just spent millions on its Universal Jobmatch website. [How a web site can cost millions is beyond me.] Many of the jobs advertised there were for non-existent companies. Other bogus entries included three ‘international couriers’ for CosaNostra Holdings, and a ‘target elimination specialist’ for MI6. I’m sure that taxpayer money could and should have been better spent.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2246793/Universal-Jobmatch-Fake-ads-seeking-MI6-hitmen-mafia-couriers-posted-Governments-new-website.html#ixzz2Ex1Bk526

The counter argument to the empty purse excuse is the government’s high speed rail plans costing many billions. I like a good rail system as much as the next man, but it’s not quite so critical in the 21st Century as Internet infrastructure running on the modern Internet protocol. I fear, however, that our politicians in general have a greater understanding of rail.

I don’t know of any other G8 (or G20?) nation which has shown this level of indifference to something that significantly affects national competitiveness and future economic growth. Without IPv6, the UK will not be able to expand its use of Internet services and technologies to the same extent as other nations. The jobs and other economic benefits which will flow from that greater use of the Internet will happen elsewhere.

Things may well stagnate. Everyone’s costs will also increase because increasingly desperate measures (kludges) will be needed to spread a dwindling reserve of IPv4 addresses amongst an exponentially increasing number of devices that is already too big for the available IPv4 space. Where are the 50-60 million IP addresses that the national smart metering programme will need?

Worse, there appears to be no effort to do anything where the government is in a position to have a direct influence. eg Ensuring IPv6 is in all future public sector IT procurements or even having a plan to ensure its public-facing web, DNS and mail servers speak IPv6. These should be no-brainers. Other countries can do that, so why can’t the UK?

The recent plan to make http://www.gov.uk the one “umbrella” web site for all public access to government web stuff was the golden opportunity do something about introducing IPv6. That open goal was missed and IPv6 is still not part of this multi-million pound project as far as I’m aware.

Slovenia’s done a remarkable job at getting IPv6 deployed. It’s Go6 initiative succeeded because it enjoyed ministerial support. The minister held regular meetings with interested parties – including the incumbent telcos and ISPs – and asked them all about their IPv6 plans. Pretty soon they all deployed IPv6. It just took was a little ministerial interest to nudge the key movers into taking action. Here, 6UK has asked and been promised meetings with the minister several times. None have taken place.

To recap, there is a role for government in IPv6 deployment and uptake. Just like there was for them in getting POSIX compliant IT systems back in the 1980s and early 90s. Government procurement decisions then stimulated the market to do the right thing. Everyone ultimately benefited from that. And it’s those POSIX-compliant systems that now underpin the overwhelming majority of the Internet’s key services: web, DNS, email, messaging, VoIP. Where would be be without them and the government efforts 15-20 years ago to nurture those open standards-based platforms?

We could do with embarassing incumbent telcos here who have been really unimpressive. A rollout by BT or Virgin Media would have created a very significant amount of interest. I realise what the US government has done but I suspect Verizon and Comcast must have be responsible for the real jump in IPv6 traffic if not the awareness it would have created among wider group of tech-aware people intrigued at the new protocol they’ve been hooked up with.

It would seem that BIS and the UK government weren’t serious about this from the outset (or did you fail to ask for sufficient funds?), also I take it that no further funding was given?
I’m therefore a little surprised 6UK has survived this long, perhaps whilst being a volunteer-based organisation has helped in this respect it hasn’t helped 6UK to get into the spotlight.

I say this as one of the founder members of ‘The Networking Centre’ (the UK MAP/TOP/OSI Conformance Test Centre) back in 1985, where we sought and obtained significant amounts of UK and EU funding. However, we were forced to close shop (in 1991) shortly after the government downgraded the role of CCTA and effectively took away a major market for open systems products, so can fully appreciate the emotions the 6UK board members will be experiencing.