Dan York

We were very pleased to read the news earlier this week coming out of the 2014 International CES event that the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) had selected “IPv6 Implementation Standards” to be one of two standards programs in its “CESpec” program.  As stated in the CEA’s news release:

The CESpec program aims to draw worldwide attention to important, new industry standards at CES. Standards selected for the 2014 CESpec program are expected to be completed by the 2015 International CES.

We are delighted to see this focus on IPv6 within the CEA and look forward to learning more about their plans over the next year. As long-time readers may recall, we attended the 2012 International CES event and met with multiple vendors to talk about IPv6.  We also know of some of the folks involved with the CEA IPv6 Working Group and would encourage any other CEA members to become more involved with that group.  As the announcement notes:

Fifteen organizations joined CEA in 2011 to form the IPv6 Working Group. The group coordinates CE manufacturers, service providers and retailers activities as the Internet transitions from IPv4 addressing to IPv6 ensuring Internet-enabled devices continue to operate without interruption. It is expected to result in a standard that defines necessary feature sets for several levels of IPv6 support, creating profiles for Basic, Basic-plus and Advanced IPv6-capable devices.

The simplest networking devices such as network printers, alarms and home automation systems are Basic devices that will support a limited set of IPv6 features. More Internet capability is appropriate for the Basic-plus profile group: optical disc players, game consoles, smart TVs and media servers. Advanced devices are those that need the most Internet capability and include PCs, tablets and smartphones.

And we very much agree with both of these quotes from the working group co-chairs, Hans Liu, director of software architecture at D-Link Systems Inc. and Dan Torbet, director of system engineering at ARRIS:

“IPv6 is the next generation of Internet protocol, and it’s being rolled out throughout the Web,” said Liu. “Our goal is to help speed this transition by providing guidance to consumer equipment manufacturers to ensure their products make maximum use of IPv6.”

“The more IPv6 capability is implemented in consumer products, the more efficiently Internet service can be delivered to consumers,” said Torbet. “We’re very happy to have this project featured as a CESpec and we look forward to demonstrating our work next year.”

We, too, are looking forward to their demonstrations of IPv6 work next year at the 2015 International CES!