NTT America is hoping that the saying from the movie "Field of Dreams" is true: If you build it, they will come. As the long-time leader in IPv6 deployment in the United States, NTT America is ready for a flood of U.S. government and business customers to upgrade to the next-generation of the Internet's main communications protocol. NTT America was the first carrier to offer commercial IPv6 transit service in 2001, and it was the first to offer IPv6-enabled firewalls in 2005. Now NTT America is inking deals with hosting companies such as The Planet and working on managed security services. Network World National Correspondent Carolyn Duffy Marsan recently interviewed Kazuhiro Gomi, CTO of NTT America. Here are excerpts from their conversation:

What is the state of IPv6 deployment by the Japanese government?

I'm not a representative of the Japanese government, so what I tell you may not be very comprehensive, but I know of the major activities that the Japanese government has done. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, which is like the FCC-equivalent of the Japanese government, had one of the biggest initiatives, which started out in 2003. It was a three-year project involving all the academic, industry and government sectors trying to show the world what IPv6 can do and to develop a couple of applications. The applications developed included a gas meter telemetry application, some sensor networks through which environmental measurements were calculated and sharing of medical information connecting different clinics in the city with rural villages. The government also put out some tax incentives for hardware vendors to develop IPv6 routers and switches. They put out guidance for federal agencies that all the government network equipment should be IPv6 compliant.

Does the Japanese government have a timeframe for its agencies to adopt IPv6?

I haven't seen anything specific. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications issued in April 2007 a guideline for IPv6 adoption for electronic government systems. It's very technically oriented, and it's mainly a security policy. There are some assessments about the cost benefits of implementing IPv6 as well as some cost increases with IPv6. It's a pretty comprehensive guideline for the government systems department people to consider.