Internet of Things

Our vision is a world where all objects are connected. We can use communications technology to make our physical environment safer, more energy-efficient, and more fun to interact with. But this requires that it is possible to communicate with billions or perhaps even trillions of devices embedded in the objects around us. There are many technical challenges on our mission to build this future. One of the challenges is addressing all those devices. This has become difficult, as the current Internet Protocol, IPv4, no longer has free address space left for any significant number of new devices. Fortunately, IPv6 offers a far larger address space. While IP connectivity is just one of the components that is needed for the future Internet of Things, it is an important enabler.

The Internet industry has been focusing on building IPv6 support for various devices and enabling IPv6 networking for Internet services. Earlier this year, the industry came together in a World IPv6 Launch effort, led by the Internet Society (ISOC). In this effort, major content providers, equipment vendors, and Internet Service Providers came together to enable IPv6-based communications for a large part of the Internet's key services. Google, Facebook, and other familiar Internet services, for instance, are now available both on IPv4 and IPv6. Ericsson was a part of this effort as well.

But in addition to our web presence, we also work with our customers' networks. Ericsson and Sprint recently published a story about adding support for IPv6 in Sprint's fixed network, completed just in time for the World IPv6 Launch. This story points to an important lesson that any networking technology upgrade is not merely about the components and products. It is also about having a team that can make the necessary analysis, updates, design, and implementation in a network. In this case, Ericsson and Sprint joined forces to update Sprint's network. While Ericsson is perhaps more widely known for its network products, a very large part of our current business is helping our customers run and improve their networks. IPv6 is a part of this task.

Click on the image below to watch the video and the original article from Ericsson's main web site:

-- Jari Arkko, Fredrik Garneij, Jan Höller, and Fabio Santos, Ericsson Research