Industry is lagging in converting to the next generation of Internet protocol, version 6, and the government should step in to speed it up, said Vint Cerf, the man who helped invent TCP/IP.

Cerf spoke Sept. 28 during an IPv6 panel held in Washington, D.C. Among the steps the government should take to push IPv6 adoption is creation of a new dashboard, said Cerf, who is now chief Internet evangelist at Google (NASDAQ: GOOG).

"Building a dashboard to track IPv6 is important, especially from the policy point of view," said Cerf. "[The government] should be able to say something about our national IPv6 readiness."

Cerf also suggested that IPv6 upgrades be partially subsidized. "Our equipment at home may not be IPv6 capable," he said. "I remember there was a program that was very successfully prosecuted called 'Cash for Clunkers' and now we have some clunky Internet routers and firewalls and things like that. Maybe we should seriously think about ‘Cash for Clunky Routers.'"