In the big spam thread, David R. Conrad writes...
Until IPv6 is widely used
Are any ISPs seriously considering deploying IPv6 in the forseeable future (e.g., what level of demand are ISPs in the US seeing for IPv6)?
What backbone providers offer it? The transition to IPv6 is clearly going to have some difficulties. We are waiting on: 1. Network equipment, with translation 2. End user software 3. Address space assignment Either everything has to suddenly change to IPv6, or there has to be translation tools in place. The translation between the IPv4 subblock of IPv6 will be easy. But how much infrastructure will be ready to go by the time customers have to use IPv6-only space? Sure, proxy servers can allow some access, but many people will want full access. IPv6-only space is of less value than IPv4-private space until IPv6 becomes at least fully routeable over the Internet. So the backbone networks are going to have to take the lead to make it happen. Even when it is routeable, it has to work on all the ends, which will thus have to have translations to make their IPv4 space appear as IPv6sub4 space. The best workable scenario I can see so far is one where IOS and other routing software includes translation between IPv4 and IPv6s4 (I'll use this term for the IPv4 equivalent sub block of IPv6 until someone tells me there is a preferred term). Backbones need to become IPv6 capable first, including the MAEs and NAPs, then any IPv6 interfaces can reach other IPv6. Step two is to transition the IPv4 services, like major web sites, to IPv6s4. These services want to be full reachable, so as soon as we can get users on IPv6, they will want to be on IPv6s4. To get users into the IPv6 space, it may require a pricing differential. It will require something. We still have many users running Windows 3.1 and some even running just DOS. If ISPs drop the IPv6 price, they lose money. They'd rather their customers just stay on IPv4 (or IPv6s4) in that case. If ISPs raise the IPv4 (or IPv6s4) price, they lose customers to some other ISP that didn't. Something is thus needed to encourage customers to move into IPv6 even when it is fully routeable. Since this is a network operation issue forum, the focus here should be on how to handle this in the networks. To me, this part doesn't seem all too technically difficult, once the software is available to handle it. But just having IOS translating IPv4 <-> IPv6s4 is not enough. We will need to manage the new IPv6 network. All the various tools we use will need to understanding IPv6 and how it it configured on the network. Routing will have to work right even during the transition to this, which means BGP4v6 has to be there capable of understanding IPv6 space at some point in time. Routing issues will become different in IPv6. If IPv6 allocations will have varying sizes like CIDR, then we might continue to have issues of size based route filtering. OTOH, with the right methods of allocating IPv6 space, no one should ever have to come back to get more space. Eventually that should mean fewer routes as IPv4/IPv6s4 closes down. Route filtering should be encouraged on IPv4 space and prohibited on IPv6 space, at that point, IMHO. -- Phil Howard | eat60me8@spam4mer.com eat1this@spam6mer.net no5way37@no5where.net phil | eat8this@dumb9ads.org stop6342@spam5mer.edu w4x5y4z8@dumbads8.edu at | stop7it4@no3place.org die1spam@s3p3a6m6.com no1spam6@nowhere0.com milepost | no75ads0@anyplace.edu no5spam4@anyplace.net stop1736@s6p9a3m7.org dot | no23ads8@nowhere0.edu stop6it3@s8p9a7m3.net blow4me1@no2place.com com | w0x5y9z7@spam2mer.com no9spam5@lame0ads.org stop5722@spammer8.org