Bandwidth Consortium in collaboration with Nigeria ICT Forum and AFRINIC has stated that deploying IPv6 is imperative to ensure the future expansion, openness and accessibility of the Internet.
According to them, “without timely IPv6 deployment, millions of Africa’s future Internet users may be excluded from reaching parts of the global Internet”.
They stated this at 4-day training at -The ICT Forum Training centre in Abuja, to provide Network Engineers with the required knowledge that would allow their organization to remain competitive in this growing technological world.
The event had 30 Network Engineers from 21 organizations including Research and Education Institutions, NgREN and network operators like Galaxy Backbone, Internet Solutions, and Phase 3.
In foresight, AFRINIC is leading the effort to promote and support IPv6 deployment throughout Africa to all stakeholders including network operators, mobile operators, academic institutions, end users, governments and regulators.
AFRINIC is the Regional Internet Registry (RIR) in charge of the distribution of Internet number resources (IPv4, IPv6 and ASNs) in the African region. IP addresses are critical Internet resources that allow devices to connect to the Internet.
Today the Internet is an essential tool for socio-economic development, and its exponential growth has resulted in the gradual depletion of the available pool of IPv4 addresses, thus making it crucial for Africa to deploy IPv6, the pillar of tomorrow’s Internet.
“Global IPv6 deployment is vital to the continued growth of the Internet and we have to act now to ensure that Africa enables its future users open and unhindered access to the global Internet. Our tailored IPv6 training program has been designed to help Network Operators and engineers in our region to better plan their IPv6 transition and to kick start deployment in their own countries. In addition to this, AFRINIC launched an IPv6 virtual lab in 2009 to widely support the community in hands on training for IPv6 deployment and offers information and documentation on a wide variety of IPv6 issues,” said Adiel Akplogan, chief executive officer of AFRINIC.
“We are very excited to see active participation by network operators and education institutions at this training. Along with the technical training received over the 4-day period, relationships have also been formed between the Network Engineers on the operators’ side as well as the customers’ side. This will definitely lead to improved quality of Internet services for everyone,” said Dewole Ajao, Operations manager of the Bandwidth Consortium.
AFRINIC also offers several other Training courses and other capacity-building programs designed to support and develop infrastructure development in Africa and the Indian Ocean region.
AFRINIC Trainings are free of charge and open to all, although priority is given to AFRINIC members and to experts in the field. The next training workshop will be held in Lagos, Nigeria, 12 to 15 August 2014.
For more information, please send a mail to press@afrinic.net. Visit our website www.learn.afrinic.net to find out how you can reserve your place on one of our training courses.
Founded in 2005 and owned by Nigerian Research and Education Institutions, the Nigeria ICT Forum facilitates and nurtures collaborations between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs).
Its mission is to cultivate a favourable policy environment and empower Nigerian HEIs for development through the utilization and sustenance of ICT networks, services and other resources.
The Nigeria ICT Forum also hosts the annual Nigerian Network Operators Group (http://forum.org.ng/ngnog/about) and the Bandwidth Consortium (http://bandwidthconsortium.org) which is improving access to knowledge and opportunities by supplying high quality Internet bandwidth at lower-than-market prices through a wholesale approach.