According to industry experts at the ongoing IPv6 global summit, the need for using the Internet has grown from e-mail specific usage, to accessing the World Wide Web for data and is expected to be used for global communication purposes (including video streaming and wireless capabilities) with the deployment of the next generation technologies.

Furthermore, with technology rapidly moving towards connecting every single device to the Internet backbone, IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6) in itself holds promise of sufficient availability of IP addresses. ``A 100 IP addresses per person in India with IPv6,'' claim the experts.

``IPv4 that we are running on is a protocol that is close to 20 years old. IPv6, the next new generation Internet protocol is built for supporting multi-service/applications at megabit speeds. While currently the Internet cannot run multiple applications/functions simultaneously, IPv6 could enable multiple functions,'' according to the president of the IPv6 Forum and vice president of Ericsson Telebit A/S Latif Ladid.

Another trend this could facilitate is the merging of the fixed wired telephony and the wireless telephony, thus providing ``always on'' connectivity.

IPv6 in particular provided for 128 bit address space, auto-configuration, IP mobility (where IP enabled devices could roam across networks), security and QoS, says Telscom managing director Dr Sathya Rao.

As the system migrates from IPv4 to IPv6, data transfer across networks (particularly wireless networks) would move from circuit switching to packet-based switching, Mr Ladid said.

``The opportunity right now for countries like India is to be able to tweak applications and functions to help build the next generation of networks without having to be stuck with legacy systems,'' he added.

As per industry estimates, the key driver for these technologies will be to enable personalisation of the Internet for specific needs of the consumer, location-based services and multiple services via a single device. The iMode model for example in Japan, allows a customer to use the phone device to avail multiple services through it.