Tag ‘digital’
Currently only 2% of all Internet traffic is IPv6 compatible. Major companies and organisations across the world, including the European Commission, are offering their content over IPv6 for a 24-hour “test flight” today to raise awareness about the need to deploy IPv6 as soon as possible.
The internet has been growing at a very fast pace in the last few years. Two billion people are now connected to the internet worldwide and the number of gadgets that will connect to the internet in the future will be even larger. We are in for a steep curve of demand for Internet Protocol addresses to transmit data from billions of connected people and devices in the next 100 years.
However, we are facing the complete pool depletion of IPv4 addresses. The last remaining IPv4 address was assigned in February 2011. The uptake of IPv6 can remedy this situation by making available a practically unlimited amount of Internet addresses to support the explosive growth of our fridges, cars, smart phones and many other domestic appliances connecting to the internet. IPv6 will assure the growth of the future internet and give rise to a whole generation of new smart services. Moving from IPv4 to IPv6 is therefore essential to let the internet evolve and create new apps and services. It will offer many advantages including larger address, space, support for new mobile and wireless services and built-in security.
Join the movement on IPv6 World Day today!
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It has been 1 year since I launched the Digital Agenda for Europe so it’s the perfect opportunity to tell you how we are delivering on our targets. I’ve made open data publicly available online about how the EU is performing.
I’m happy that overall progress is good. The Scoreboard shows that more and more Europeans are using the internet. 65% of citizens now use it at least weekly so we are nearing our target of 75% by 2015. Activities that usually are carried out offline are increasingly performed online. For example, one third of citizens now use internet banking and read the news online. The numbers of EU citizens shopping online and making use of public online services is also on the rise. In terms of getting Every European Digital, this is already a great achievement.
But there is still work to be done. 95% of Europeans now have access to broadband internet infrastructure. But that still leaves a lot of people – 10 million households, in fact – who we are still to reach to deliver our 2013 target. So I’m still concerned about how are we going to deliver broadband for all. I am confident that we can reach our goal but we need to be open-minded and creative about the solutions. Terrestrial or satellite wireless networks for instance can step in where landline solutions become too expensive to cover large, rural areas.
There is a lot of food for thought in the Scoreboard and its implications will be further discussed in Brussels on June 16-17 at the Digital Agenda Assembly. And to all the data fans: you can play around with the data sets and statistics in the Scoreboard to carry out your own analysis and conclusions. Let me know what you come up with.
Number of views: 6620
Two important consultations are now live. First, we are asking citizens and businesses and other interested parties consultation on how can we guarantee access to communications services in the digital era. The key question is: are our rules appropriate for the digital age? Should they be expanded to cover broadband access, for example? The consultation will run until 7 May 2010.
Separately the Commission is asking for views on use of Radio Spectrum 2010-2015, between now and 9 April. Your views will feed into a ‘Spectrum Summit’ held jointly with the European Parliament 22-23 March. Many of our most widely used technologies depend on fair spectrum access – the question is what is most fair and effective?
Number of views: 2751
