AUTOMOTIVE

MCI's connectivity to the Moonv6 network will give test participants a native, non-tunneled connection to Moonv6 via MCI's MAE Services network exchange points. MCI's MAE infrastructure facilitates nationwide Layer 2 interconnectivity and public peering between Internet service providers. MAE Services connection points are located in San Jose, Los Angeles, New York, Dallas, Chicago, metro Washington, D.C. and Miami (first quarter 2005). IPv6 is Internet Protocol Version 6 which is designed to replace the current Internet protocol called Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). Known as the next generation Internet protocol, IPv6 is expected to solve some of the IPv4 limitations including the number of available addresses. IPv6 also is expected to add several improvements including network routing and network auto-configuration. IPv6 will gradually replace IPv4, with the two protocols co-existing for a number of years during the transition. "MCI's link to Moonv6 as a provider is a significant milestone for the Moonv6 project and will help the NAv6TF attract additional commercial enterprise sites to participate in the Moonv6 evolution as one of the world's largest native IPv6 networks in existence today," said Jim Bound, Chair NAv6TF, CTO, IPv6 Forum. Tom Bechly, director of MCI MAE engineering, said, "As a global IP leader, MCI is pleased to be able to make an important contribution to the advancement of IPv6 testing. The ability to establish native IPv6 connectivity in addition to tunneling should help facilitate testing and enable test participants to better assess how IPv6 equipment performs in real-world deployments." Moonv6 represents the most aggressive multi-vendor test and demonstration of products being developed for the next-generation Internet protocol. The latest round of Moonv6 testing included interoperability in pure IPv6 as well as mixed v6 and IPv4 networks, wireless LANs, voice over IP (VoIP), firewalls, IPsec (IP Security), dual-stack routing, Internet protocols such as DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), DNS and various applications and transition mechanisms. "IPv6 is clearly gaining traction with North American service providers," said Ben Schultz, IPv6 managing engineer at the UNH-IOL. "Input from leaders like MCI helps us to raise our network-level testing far beyond a mere academic exercise or public demonstration of the protocol and to test products against a more complex network topology closely matched to real-world carrier infrastructures."