The implementation of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was important for the country to develop the Internet of Things (IoT) and its abilities of device connectivity and security support. — Photo viettimes.vn

HÀ NỘI —The implementation of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) was important for the country to develop the Internet of Things (IoT) and its abilities of device connectivity and security support, noted Phan Tâm, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications at a workshop celebrating Việt Nam IPv6 Day 2017 in Hà Nội yesterday.

The workshop is an annual event which started in 2013. With the theme "IPv6 and Internet of Things", this year’s event aims to analyse the relationship between IPv6 and the IoT industry, as well as create opportunities for enterprises and organisations to share on the deployment of IPv6 and IoT.

Speaking at the workshop, deputy minister Phan Tâm emphasised that IoT was not a new concept in the modern technology world. The tremendous benefits that IoT brought to the economic development and for daily life made it the trend of technology in the years to come, he said.

“The need to promote IPv6 is increasingly urgent, as is the development of industrial revolution 4.0, the Internet, high-tech industry and smart agriculture, healthcare and traffic, which require the connectivity of billions of devices,” he noted.

"Each device will use at least one network address when connecting to the IoT network. The analysis predicts that about 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, while the IPv4 address space can provide only about four billion addresses,” said Tâm.

“IPv6’s ability to connect devices and support better security are also reasons why IPv6 is needed if the country wants to develop IoT," he added.

At the conference, Nguyễn Trung Kiên, a representative from VNPT Technology said that from the company’s experience of research and implementation of IoT solutions, IPv6 plays a very important role in IoT.

Using IPv6 addresses would bring many benefits to IoT development, such as the large number of IP addresses; end-to-end connectivity support; better service quality and better security, he said.

Nguyễn Hồng Thắng, deputy director of the Việt Nam Internet Network Information Centre (VNNIC), said that Google statistics showed that the percentage of IPv6 usage worldwide was currently 20 per cent, and was expected to reach 100 per cent by 2019.

Experts predict that the world’s population will reach 7.6 billion people by 2020, while the world will have about 50 billion connected devices (about 6.58 devices per person).

Việt Nam’s IPv6 readiness was evaluated at a high level in regards to the region, he said. The country’s IPv6 penetration reached about six per cent as of March this year, ranking second in Southeast Asia and fifth in Asia. — VNS