On 20th, Congressman Jaeyeop Shim pointed out that NIA (National Information Society Agency) a subsidiary of MIC (Ministry of Information and Communication), has found urgency of migrating to IPv6 through government inspection but MIC is not doing much about it.

By 2012, Congressman Shim says, the Web will be out of IPv4 addresses. This is a bombshell. It could mean future purchase of PC or cell phone could not connect to internet.

According to report furnished to Congressman Shim by MIC, 96.2% of available Korean IPV4 addresses are used up currently. This finding is consistent with report conducted by Japanese government earlier in March and also recent document from AP, predicting the Ipv4 addresses drying out by year 2012.
The IPv4 Internet has room for about 4.3 billion addresses but that is far less than current world population (6.5 billion in 2005). This finding shows not enough internet addresses to go around for each individual.

Current IPv4 Usage Among Asian Nations

National IPv6 Planning Budget Comparisons

The growing users with popularity of smartphones, mobile internet (WiBro), internet phone (VoIP) and other next generation gadgets connecting to the Internet is eating up real estate on the net, and with the current version Internet Protocol, IP Version 4 ("IPv4"), soon cyberspace will run out of room stressed, Congressman Shim.

South Korea, 96.2% Maxed out, IPv6 migration not implemented
South Korea has used up 96.2% of available IP addresses compared to Japan’s 71.7% with room to breath yet.

Even with that spare room Japan is making the transition to Ipv6 infrastructure to upgrade its networks but South Korea has not reached that stage presently.

Japan has announced (Jan. 2006) its plans under prime minister’s ‘IT strategy team’ to newly upgrade all of its electronics administration services to IPv6 by year 2008.

In US’ case, even though it owns more than 50 percent of available world’s Ipv4 addresses, administration is mandating the transition to IPv6 packets by mid 2008.

Also in Europe’s case, The European Commission is investing $1.1 billion annually since 2000 to drive over 40 different IPv6 reated projects with 19 currently running.

Looking at IPv6 planning budgets, compared to US’ approximately $40 billion and Japan’s $3.8 billion, South Korea has invested only $8.47 billion from 2004 to 2006.

On that note the Congressman Shim said, “South Korean government has not came up with any solid plans currently ever since it announced its IPv6 plans as part of three IT839 strategies in 2003 under former MIC director.”

“Only administration bringing the IPv6 version is military sector and that is in contrast to our MIC and other nations like US, Japan and Europe where their government and agencies are cooperation to make the IPv6 transitions. Our government and public agencies should also make this kind of moves to step into right direction. That will be the key to avoiding impending chaos with the shortage of internet addresses.” he also said,