IPv6 was finally standardised by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) early 1999. The core protocols and addressing schemes are standardised and possible mechanisms for transition have been proposed. Since operational issues are outside the scope of the IETF framework, the IETF working group IP Next Generation (IPNG) has asked the Internet community to start deployment of the new IPv6 protocol suite, to gain experience with the new protocols in production environments.

The need for a larger IP address space will be a main driver for IPv6. Deployment of IPv6 will happen incrementally over time and transition mechanisms and strategies for this are needed. In July 1999 the first official IPv6 addresses were released.

UMTS might decide on using IPv6 both to take advantage of the enhanced functionality and to get a sufficiently large address space. Therefore, UMTS might be the first large-scale public IPv6 network. This will highlight the need for an IPv4 to IPv6 migration strategy for public mobile and fixed IP networks. The development in the next two years will be essential for the successful management of a smooth transition from today’s Internet with various technical shortcomings to an environment where most, if not all of the issues – reliability, security and sustained growth – are addressed.

A project among European Telecommunication Operators could at some point become the core of the Next Generation Internet in Europe. This project should be seen as an IPv6 deployment trial with a European "production" testbed.

Earlier projects have mainly focused on the experimental 6BONE network. The goal of this project is to gain experiences with IPv6 as the core of a stable IPv6 production network environment. The project proposes to set up such an environment between major telecommunication companies and Internet service Providers in Europe. Experiences are to be gained on IPv6 issues in a multi-provider environment.

Deployment and transition strategies for services on top of IPv6, e.g. Mobility, QoS support, Multicast Implementation, Network configuration and management will be considered. Routing and peering of IPv6-domains (BGP4+) will be investigated and implementation strategies will be developed. In addition to the technical features, business case considerations of IPv6 in a multi-provider environment will be described.

The key results of the project will answer the following questions:

• Which are the possible Transition Strategies for an incremental transition from IPv4 to IPv6?
• Which are the viable IPv6 inter-provider core architectures?
• Which are the Inter-provider router issues (BGP, etc)?
• How can IPv6 be used in an UMTS network?
• How can the EURESCOM Shareholders take advantage of special services on top of IPv6 features in inter-provider environments (e.g. Mobility, Anycast, QoS)?

• How can IPv6 aid new service deployment, e.g. "Always On"?