2011/6/6 Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>:
I think you'll be surprised over time. Given the tendency of the internet to nearly double in size every 2 years or so, it only takes 7 cycles (about 15 years) for the existing network to become a single-digit percentage of the future network.
Owen
Internet' growth is measured by bandwidth rather than number of active operators or prefixes. Maxing a router's backplane or upgrading it won't change the network to a whole new thing, as most operators will just keep the old ways over and over. Considering the amount of trafic will double in the next 24 months or so, wich seems a reasonable assumption, I think IPv6 trafic has some more potential growth to come than v4, but even the later will still grow. Keeping that in mind makes me expect a very progressive curve for the significance of IPv6 in the overall bandwidth usage stats, unless eyeballs networks starts to make a major move towards IPv6 effective deployments. But honestly, while working mostly for eyballs networks, I can assure you even the largest ain't close to ready for such a move ;) -- Jérôme Nicolle