Testing incentives sought.

Governments in Asia and Europe have taken concrete steps to encourage the private sector to adopt computer network protocol IPv6, but in the United States, most interested parties are lobbying for a laissez-faire approach. The attitude in the United States has some infrastructure vendors warning that the country's economic edge could be in jeopardy if the nation does not accelerate its transition to the new protocol. There is a broad consensus that the United States is in no danger of running out of Internet protocol addresses in the IPv4 context soon. However, the U.S. Department of Defense implemented a plan to convert to IPvG networking, and the U.S. Department of Commerce earlier this year asked for input on other roles for the U.S. federal government in the transition. Urging the government to consider the impact of IPvG deployment on the country's competitiveness in the global market, Cisco Systems Inc. Senior vice president Joel Bion cautioned last week that Japan, China and Europe "already see the lethargy in the U.S. as an opportunity to seize economic leadership."