Govt Directs ISPs To Deploy IPv6 Services From Next Year

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 10 (Bernama) -- The government has directed Internet service providers (ISPs) to deploy Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) services beginning next year.

Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, in announcing this, said it was proposed that e-government services implement IPv6 the following year to enable the transformation of Malaysia to an IPv6-enabled nation in 2010.

To facilitate further the deployment of IPv6, the government has established the IPv6 centre of excellence at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).

"The centre will assist the government in the transformation process," Dr Lim said at the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom) National Information and Communications Technology Awards ceremony here Friday.

The centre, he added, will provide training for IPv6 professionals and coordinate other activities, such as research and development in IPv6, awareness programmes and certification activities.

Dr Lim also announced that a neutral Malaysian Internet Exchange would be launched at the end of this month.

"This time, it is indeed neutral and there shall be no more issues about peering. And I assure you that it will not fail," he said, adding that local traffic will not be going out of Malaysia for routing anymore.

He noted that an earlier attempt to set up an exchange had failed because it was not neutral.

Dr Lim said there had been complaints on the capacity and cost of Internet bandwidth in Malaysia.

"In fact, the most disturbing news was that Internet traffic from Malaysia bound for the country was routed through Singapore and elsewhere," he said.

"This could have been fine in the earlier years, but after 10 years of the Internet in Malaysia, this indeed is unacceptable," he added.

Dr Lim also said that with content being the prime driver of the industry, the ministry planned to introduce a grant scheme for mobile content creation in a few months' time.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has been assigned to establish a mechanism for the scheme, he said.

-- BERNAMA