Public awareness of IPv6 is limited in Hong Kong while technical knowledge on the new internet protocol is lacking, according to results of a survey released on Wednesday -- the day of World IPv6 Launch.
The online survey -- done in the first quarter of the year by the City University of Hong Kong -- was commissioned by the Internet Society Hong Kong.
Although 71% of the more than 600 respondents have basic knowledge of IPv4, only 24% of them are familiar with IPv6, survey results indicate.
Among all the industries, manufacturing, restaurants and hotels, and community, social and personal services got the lowest score in IPv6 awareness, according to the person-in-charge of the survey, Daniel Tse, Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong.
The survey suggests a huge lack of preparation among individual and business users, he pointed out. Although 63% of respondents agree that local enterprises must switch to IPv6 urgently, only 9.7% are ready to deploy IPv6, said Tse, adding that more than 90% of respondents have no plans to apply IPv6.
APNIC: 0.6% of Hong Kong Net users IPv6-enabled
Geoff Huston, chief scientist APNIC (Asia Pacific Network Information Centre) Hong Kong also pointed out there is only 0.6% of Internet users in Hong Kong are IPv6-enabled as of May 2012.
The percentage is compared with 1.2% in China and 4% in France, he said.
Huston noted the higher IPv6 adoption rate in France is a result of the local ISP pushing the services. In China -- where the rapid online development caused the exhaustion of IPv4 addresses -- has also resulted a higher adoption of IPv6, he added.
APNIC -- a non-profit organization -- is one of five Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) charged with ensuring the fair distribution and responsible management of IP addresses and related resources.
The registrar warned this week that the global IPv6 transition could still go wrong because there is little economic incentive for CPE devices and the last mile to embrace the technology.