Communications and Information Technology Commission organizes the third National Forum on IPv6

The Communications and Information Technology Commission is organizing, today Thursday 18 Rajab 1436H, corresponding to May 7, 2015, at the Commission's main headquarters in Riyadh, the third National Forum on IPv6.

His Excellency the Acting Governor of the Commission, Engineer Habib bin Khudhr Al-Shanqiti, opened the forum's activities with a speech highlighting the global developments reached by the communications and information technology sector; foremost among them the rapid increase in the global spread of the internet, the spread of broadband services, their speeds and technologies, as well as the increasing reliance on the internet to connect various devices; and the true revolution the world is witnessing in applications, services, and equipment, especially in the field of smartphones, government and public services, and social networking sites.

Al-Shanqiti noted that all these developments require more IP numbers, which cannot be provided through IPv4, due to their depletion at the regional internet number registries. Recognizing the importance of transitioning to IPv6, the Commission took the initiative to work on raising the Kingdom's readiness for IPv6 and formed the Saudi IPv6 Task Force, with active participation from service providers and relevant entities. The team took upon itself to keep pace with global developments, spread awareness, and stimulate the readiness of internet service providers and major government and private institutions, achieving important steps over previous years to ensure that electronic services in the Kingdom are not affected by the depletion of IPv4 addresses and to achieve smooth support for IPv6.

The Acting Governor of the Commission noted that statistics indicate growing growth in the percentage of internet networks that support IPv6, in addition to growth in the volume of IPv6 traffic, which reached more than 6% of total global internet traffic according to some global statistics and reports.