NCC develops internet industry code of practice document

The deployment of IPv6 is a more sustainable solution that can deliver economic and social opportunities for the future of the Internet economy, as compared to other stop gap measures of either deploying IPv4 Network Address Translation (NAT), according to Professor Umar Danbatta, executive vice chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

Strategically, the Commission has commenced the development of the Internet Industry Code of Practice document that will guide the Commission and the Internet Industry.

This was contained in the EVC’s address at opening ceremony of a three-day 2017 International Workshop on IPv6 organised by the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) in collaboration with AFRINIC, the internet numbering registry for Africa, held in Lagos.

Prof. Danbatta represented by Engineer Haru Alhassan, director, New Media and Information Security at the Commission, said that the proposed Internet Code of Practice will lead ultimately to the establishment of shared principles, Norms, Rules that shape the use of the Internet in the Country.

While the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses is a global phenomenon, the need for IPv6 is even more urgent in Nigeria a location to the fastest growing ICT Industry, the EVC said, adding that IPv6 will enable an enormous increase in the number of Internet addresses currently available under IPv4.

He reiterated that while the abounding business and innovation opportunities alone are reason enough for the ICT Industry to make a quick transition to IPv6 capable IT infrastructure, IPv6 implementation brings much more to the table including increased security and ease of management; the new protocol features a network layer that ensures simpler security management than IPv4, because it has inbuilt security to facilitate encryption and authentication of communications; and having a full IPv6 infrastructure also makes network management easier and cost effective.