“A worldwide effort to promote the adoption of a new version
of the Internet protocol, called IPv6 (Internet Protocol version
6), will be launched early next week, according to an
individual with the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) who is
familiar with the effort.
“More than 20 of the largest telecommunications providers and IT
vendors from Europe, Asia and North America will announce the
formation of the IPv6 Forum, which will be dedicated to raising
awareness and speeding introduction of the new protocol, said the
IETF source, who asked not to be identified. The IETF is an
Internet standards body.
“The date for the IPv6 Forum launch has been tentatively set for
July 5. Its final roster of members was still being finalized last
week, but is likely to include British Telecom PLC, L.M. Ericsson
Telephone Corp., Nokia Corp., Telecom Italia CSELT, 3Com Corp.,
Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., Hitachi Ltd. and Nippon
Telegraph & Telephone Corp., according to a preliminary
statement from the forum.”