IPv6 lags with GSA Networx deployment

CHICAGO -- While the General Service Administration is admitting that many federal agencies are lagging in the transition to the new Networx program from the previous FTS2001 contract, two of the major players in the Networx contract say those agencies that have made the transition aren’t yet making much use of the new Networx IPv6 capabilities.

AT&T (NYSE: T), Qwest Communications (NYSE: Q) and Verizon Business (NYSE:VZ) were each chosen as a national contractor by the GSA, meaning they can compete for the business of federal agencies. In a separate contract, those three companies, Level 3 Communications and Sprint were authorized as enterprise providers to government agencies. Officials at Level 3 Communications and Verizon said Tuesday at the GSA Conference in Chicago that few of their agency customers are making use of IPv6 capabilities because the applications they use haven’t yet made the transition.

The Office of Management and Budget had mandated that federal agencies move to IPv6, a move that was expected to spur wider adoption of that technology.

“Government agencies use the same applications that large businesses do, and for the most part, those applications don’t use IPv6,” said Edward Morche, senior vice president of federal markets for Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ: LVLT). “For example, Microsoft is just now starting to use IPv6.”

“The capability is there in the network,” said Susan Zeleniak, group president of Verizon Federal. “But we are not seeing it at the application level. Many applications will have to be re-written.”

Morche said Level 3 is seeing more interest in IPv6 outside the US, from Scandinavian and Asian carriers that are wholesale customers, than from inside the US. The Networx contract and the OMB mandate “have increased the communication and the discussion about IPv6 but not to the point where they are not buying IPv4 services – we are not at that tipping point yet,” Morche said. “I expect it to be a long, slow transition.”

In general, government agencies have been slower to move to all-IP networking by adopting VoIP, both Morche and Zeleniak agreed.