5. IPv6, an industrial challenge

5.1 IPv6, an essential choice

Internet growth, which has been running at 30% a year worldwide for several years now, is leading to a shortage of IPv4 addresses, the effects of which are already being felt as, for example, GPRS is being deployed in Europe using private addresses in the absence of sufficient global address allocations. So, on the one hand, we're managing the shortage of IPv4 addresses, and on the other, we're "compartmentalizing" networks to the detriment of interoperability and universal services.

The choice today is this:

• Do we stay with the current version of the IP protocol (IPv4) by asking operators and service providers to manage private networks and by creating gateways between private networks?...