apr-2017c

8 9 OPENING LINES FUTURE-PROOFING OUR INTERNET: CARIBBEAN ISPs ARE SWITCHING TO NEXT-GENERATION PROTOCOL F orward-thinking network operators in Latin America and the Caribbean are us- ing the Internet’s next-generation proto- col, called IPv6, to gain a business edge over their competitors. The upside for custom- ers is better quality of service, and in the long term, a more future-proof regional Internet. The Internet Protocol, or IP, is the method by which data is sent from one computer to anoth- er on the Internet. Each device on the Internet has at least one IP address that uniquely identi- fies it from all other computers on the Internet. Since World IPv6 Launch on June 6, 2012, several major websites such as Google, You- Tube, Netflix, and Facebook have started rolling out IPv6. Today, the message to ISPs is clear: don’t wait for other competitors to switch over to IPv6, and don’t wait until your clients switch over to your competitors. “The old protocol, IPv4, doesn’t give the In- ternet any room to grow, so in the near future, new clients and devices will need to connect using IPv6. Internet penetration is increasing worldwide, and more and more types of devices are connected. Internet providers need to take the IPv6 transition process very seriously in order to meet this growing demand in a satis- factory way,” said Alfredo Verderosa, Manager of Services at the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry (LACNIC), a non-gov- ernmental organization based in Uruguay. In the last months, IPv6 penetration among