Towards IPV6 Adoption in Developing Arab Countries in Western Asia Region

Abstract

The new Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) is of great importance mainly with the depletion of the standard Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) in most countries. In addition to emerging technologies especially the Internet of things, smart grids, smart infrastructure, and smart buildings which requires a large number of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to accommodate the growing need to connect more things for all kinds of purposes. The adoption of the new protocol and the readiness of many countries is slow and mostly noticeable in developing nations. This might lead to a new digital divide and would have significant effects on economic growth especially for new digitally dependent economics. In this study we focus on some of the third world countries to evaluate the state of IPv6 adoption and readiness by identifying the main challenges facing the deployment in these countries which are certainly shared among other countries to. We present the current state of the IPv6 adoption in the different regions focusing on Western Asia Arab countries to identify opportunities that are presented by the new protocol. The main objective is to encourage the different stakeholders in the region to seize the early benefits of adopting the new protocol. Our research findings indicate that the region despite its wealth and its above world average of Internet penetration, is slow in adopting and deploying the new protocol such as many regions in the world. We identified challenges and opportunities of migrating to the new IP protocol in terms of accessibility, innovation and economic growth. Our future research would survey the readiness of local ISPs and governments to migrate to IPv6 as more e-services and more people are connected to the Internet.