Paris, 9 December 2016

A dashboard in order to accelerate the transition to IPv6

On 30 September of this year, Arcep published its report to the Government on the rollout status of the IPv6 protocol. As requested by Axelle Lemaire, France's Minister of State for Digital Affairs and Innovation, in its action plan for stepping up the transition to IPv6 Arcep announced the creation of a dedicated dashboard.

This dashboardon the transition to IPv6 must help:

• encourage coordination between Internet companies to accelerate deployments;

• provide users with information, which can be considered in the public interest, on the status of the transition in France, including operator by operator.

To this end, the dashboard provides a status report on IPv6 rollouts in France, along with details on the protocol's adoption over time. This transparent approach to deployments and major players' plans will make it possible to identify any potential stumbling blocks along the way.

At this stage, the dashboard is limited to data produced and made available by third parties. The enhanced version of the dashboard, which will be published in late 2017, will include data that Arcep will have collected directly from the main ISPs in France.

Providing an overview of the Internet in France

In spring 2017, the pace of the transition to IPv6 will also be the focus of progress report from Arcep, which will include this topic in a broader "State of the Internet in France".

As stipulated in European regulation, this detailed status report will include a first annual report on Arcep's supervision of net neutrality, and its preliminary findings.

N.B.: only IPv6 will benefit from forthcoming technological developments on the Internet

Since 7 November 2016, the IAB (Internet Architecture Board) (1) has advocated that, from hereon in, Internet operating standards, notably those developed by IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) (2), be designed and enhanced solely for IPv6, without seeking backwards compatibility with IPv4.

Arcep welcomes the IAB decision, which is a major milestone in the adoption of IPv6 and in the process of phasing out IPv4.

(1) Committee in charge of overseeing and guiding the Internet's evolution through various organisations such as IANA, IETF and IRTF (2) Informal and open international experts group that contributes to developing and promoting voluntary Internet standards