Govt urged to set IPv6 deadline

Deadline required to ensure change to IPv6 is made, says Australian government official

Governments should set firm deadlines for IPv6 capability in at least their externally-facing ICT services, says John Hillier, assistant director at the Australian government’s information management office (AGIMO).

“If you don’t have a deadline people won’t do things,” he told a conference organised by the IPv6 Task Force on “Practical IPv6 for Government” today.

The Australian government has set a deadline of December 31 this year for all government agencies’ externally facing systems to be IPv6 capable. This is defined as “able to deliver or obtain services over the internet using IPv6 protocol,” he says.

The US government has a deadline of the end of 2012 for IPv6 compliant external and 2014 for internal systems. Hiller says AGIMO has imposed no deadline for internal systems to be IPv6 ready.

The Australian deadline is complemented by a strict quarterly reporting regime.

Stuart Wakefield, director of the office of the Govenrment CIO in NZ’s Department of Internal Affairs, which coordinates all-of-government ICT strategy, says DIA is happy with no firm deadline. “We have taken the view that imposing a deadline would drive additional expenditure into government agencies,” for little proven medium-term benefit in many cases, he says.