The Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) has announced that beginning July 2023, all mobile phones, computers, tablets and other devices that do not have IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) are banned from that country.
IP is a protocol that enables computers or devices to communicate with each other over a network. In essence, IP is a set of rules that facilitate the routing of data packets across networks to their intended destination.
There are multiple versions of the IPs. The most current one is the IPv4, which is the first version of IP that was used and was officially released in 1983. It is still the most widely used version for identifying devices on a network.
IPv6 is a newer version of IP that was developed to address the limitations of IPv4, which can take only 4.3 billion unique IP addresses – not enough to accommodate the growing number of devices, including IoT devices and sensors. Again IPv4 uses 32-bit addresses.
On the contrary IPv6 uses 128-bit addresses and has approximately 7.9 x 1028 unique addresses, which means every device can have a unique address, while in IPv4, addresses may be reused or masked.
The transition to IPv6 is important because it enhances security by supporting end-to-end IP security protocol mode.
To drive the uptake of IPv6, only devices with IPv6 capability will be type approved for use in Kenya effective July 2023. This is part of CAK’s regulatory intervention.
The regulator reports that it will ban the sale of devices such as mobile phones, computers, printers, and scanners that do not have IPv6 because the it had said that only devices with IPv6 capability would be approved for use in Kenya effective July 2023.
The CAK had earlier warned that should Kenya delay in full adoption of IPv6, then serious technological challenges may befall the country’s ICT sector, including lack of internet access, and lag in tech advances.
IPv6 adoption rates for Kenya are currently at under 8%, Uganda at 0.3 %, Tanzania (0.11%), Rwanda at 6.34 %, Burundi and South Sudan at 0%. It is not clear what the status is in Ghana.
