Leo writes:
Customers don't want static addresses.
They want DNS that works, with their own domain names, forward and reverse.
They want renumbering events to be infrequent, and announced in advance.
They want the box the cable/dsl/fios provider to actually work, that is be able to do really simple stuff without having to buy another stupid box to put behind it.
None of these require static, and in fact I'd think it would be easier to get it right than it would be to do statics for most providers. But, I must be wrong, since the only solution virtually every provider offers is to "move up" to "a static IP".
I'm one of the geeky fringe here, obviously, but it's hard for my nameservers at home to not be static IPed be it IPv4 or v6. There are plenty of possible solutions, but they all involve more effort by the ISP or DNS provider... I and they can put in that effort, but just provisioning me statics is a lot easier, and that's what everyone has done so far. Nothing about the IPv6 transition on the transport end changes the provisioning effort / logistics / technical support difficulty issues associated with this. If you believe that geek houses are enough of an outlier to not worry about, consider the million or so internet connected small businesses who do their own DNS... Perhaps there are better ways to do all of this from the start. But IPv6 is not helping any of the ways we have evolved to deal with it. Perhaps it's time for some actual network operators and equipment vendors to go talk on the side about IPv7 and making our lives easier rather than harder. I urge everyone who is involved in the back-room "bring tar and feathers to next IETF meeting" discussions to do this instead. I really don't care how many bits are wasted on what - I want DNS, routing, endpoint mobility, multihoming, NAT, et al to work. If that means bigger packets or wasted address space so be it. We have pipe bandwidth and Moore's Law growth to work with here. Having to patch the net together for the next decade with baling wire and string because a bunch of non-operators got to set IPv6 up to be a more perfect way forward is not scaling. And 20 years between protocol design and rollout is absurd and insulting. -george william herbert gherbert@retro.com