Western Railway becomes the first zonal railway to migrate from IPv4 to IPv6 in communication and IT

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India]: Western Railway has become the first zonal railway in the country to adopt latest internet protocol technology in communications and IT.

The WR has migrated from IR to IPv6 which provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the internet.

The Infrared (IR), which is a wireless mobile technology, is used for device communication over short ranges. IR communication has major limitations because it requires line-of-sight, has a short transmission range, and is unable to penetrate walls. IR transceivers are quite cheap and serve as short-range communication solutions.

On the other hand, Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the internet. IPv6 was developed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to deal with the long-anticipated problem of IPv4 addressing exhaustion and is intended to replace it.

As a part of the ‘Digital India’ initiative, WR has adopted the latest technology in communication & IT networks. In a major breakthrough, WR has become the first Zonal Railways over IR to adopt IPv6, the latest Internet Protocol technology in Communications and IT by migrating from the earlier technology of IPv4.

Sumit Thakur, Chief Public Relations Officer (CPRO) of WR said, “The main difference between IPv4 and IPv6 is the address size of IP addresses. The IPv4 is a 32-bit address, whereas IPv6 is a 128-bit hexadecimal address. The latest Internet Protocol technology, IPv6 provides a large address space and it contains a simple header as compared to IPv4. With the IPv6 technology, WR will be in a better position to manage the network to ensure better reliability of communication and IT networks.”