COUNTRY FOCUS: NIGERIA
Essential to initiate IPv6
migration in Nigeria
While globally there is an initiative to switch
from IPv4 to IPv6, within Africa and Nigeria
the slow adoption is cause for concern.
is no longer a choice, complete loss of
connectivity with the Internet, and no
longer being competitive with other
organisations, whose systems are
primed for IPv6 and ready to move
to the next generation of Internet
addressing and use.
According to a Nigerian IPv6
Council survey in 2015, only four
telecommunications networks out
of over a hundred autonomous
systems are currently using the latest
communications protocol in Nigeria.
“IPv6 will open a sum of Internet
addresses larger than a total of IPv4
addresses, and if not adopted soon
enough, end-to-end connectivity as
required by specific applications will
not be universally available on the
Internet until IPv6 is fully implemented.
Furthermore, the implementation
of IPv6 ready networks is critical in
addressing the current cybercrime
statistics in the Nigerian market, as
these are a concern for those businesses
currently operating and those looking to
operate the region,” explains McCallum.
Mark McCallum, Country Manager South Africa, Orange Business Services
T
he slow migration of African
countries from Internet Protocol
Version 4, IPv4 to Internet
Protocol Version 6, IPv6 has become a
source of concern in the region. Even
Nigeria, boasting West Africa’s largest
economy, has been slow in adopting
the new Internet protocol, which could
undermine efforts to secure online
transactions and develop the Internet in
the region.
The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority
is the entity responsible for handing out
IP addresses for the Internet. IANA has
already run out of IPv4 addresses, which
means that each region around the world
will soon be out of addresses to allocate,
making the migration to IPv6 a must for
all businesses, especially those operating
across borders.
IPv6 being the most recent version
of the Internet Protocol, provides an
www.intelligentcio.com
identification and location system for
computers on networks and routes
traffic across the Internet.
Mark McCallum, Country Manager South
Africa, Orange Business Services states,
“IPv6 was developed to deal with the long-
anticipated problem of the exhaustion
of IPv4, by using a longer set of numbers
to allow more devices to connect to the
Internet, and offer more security than the
previous version. This is vital for Nigeria, as
it continues to be an area of interest for
multinational businesses looking to move
into and invest in Africa.”
IPv6, as a solution to the IP address
problem, is not a new standard, but one
that has been largely ignored in recent
years due to still having so many IPv4
addresses left. Countries continuing to
ignore IPv6 could cause themselves a
number of potential problems including
inability to migrate to IPv6 when there
IPv6 offers a significantly larger pool of
addresses by using 128-bit addresses.
This extended pool provides scalability,
but also introduces additional
security by making host scanning and
identification more challenging for
attackers. IPv6 also provides a range of
benefits in terms of network integrity
and performance.
The Nigerian Internet Registration
Association Academy has signed
a memorandum of understanding
with AFRINIC, one of the world’s five
Regional Internet Registries to develop
and certify skills in Internet Number
Resources Management and Internet
Protocol Version 6 in Nigeria.
The Association of Telecommunications
Companies of Nigeria has expressed
worries over the slow migration process
from IPv4 to IPv6 in the country.
Fortunately, IPv4 and IPv6 can coexist
within a network, since the changeover
will take years. However, support for
both must be maintained in order to
utilise them at the same time during the
migration process. n
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