On 31/03/2010 21:07, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

the current wrt610n supports ipv6 I failed to see why a slightly updated and rebranded one would not as well.

because for low-end CPE devices like this, a tiny change in the model number (e.g. v1->v2) might mean a completely different internal system, with different host CPU, different ethernet controller, etc. You're not in any way guaranteed the same sort of software compatibility when moving from one device version to another, particularly for less well supported features like ipv6. Nick

I checked the documentation for two models (Linux model and highest-end non-Linux model), and there's no mention of IPv6.

If this is a strictly "hardware" discussion, v6 "works" on a variety of models, albeit not with stock firmware. To wit : http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPv6 This suggests that Cisco (et.al.) can release an "official" firmware image to support v6 on existing devices whenever they're sufficiently motivated to do so. I'd wager the only reason it hasn't been made GA is to limit the number of "pass-the-buck" support calls that start at $isp and get bounced back saying "we don't support that yet, call whoever makes your router". My $0.02. Cheers, Michael Holstein Cleveland State University

On 03/31/2010 03:07 PM, Ricky Beam wrote:

Yes and no. Many of the uber-cheap models simply don't have the processing power or memory to do IPv6 well. (Some would say they don't do IPv4 well. I'm one of them.) Pure here's-a-packet-here's-where-it-goes switching can be done in almost any model as long as the v6 stack doesn't make the image too large to fit in the 4K rom. Doing anything remotely complicated, like tunneling and stateful firewalling, makes the image much too large and eats way too much ram. (This is also way many of the cheap models do not run linux and generally cannot run a usable linux image.) On the more expensive, higher end models, yes, they can run rather complex IPv4/6 stacks quite well.

I *seriously* doubt that in this day and age. The basic problem is with Linksys' business model which is to farm out the engineering to whomever can produce it cheapest. They provide the spec and if it ain't in the specs, it ain't in the product. You can expect *no* continuity between one product and the next; there ain't an IOS or even codebase.

However, the bottom is that there is simply little to no consumer demand for IPv6 support -- esp. in North America (read: US) where most of these things are sold.

Yes, of course, except for that making a self-fulfilling prophecy. Mike, who's been bitten one too many times

On 01/04/2010 00:40, Michael Dillon wrote:

In fact, consumer demand for IPv6 is close to 100%.

Michael, I think you fat-fingered "0%". Just to be clear, I'm talking about the real world here. Nick

On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 8:16 PM, Michael Dillon <wavetossed@googlemail.com> wrote:

I did not fat finger anything. In the real world, nearly 100% of consumers demand IPv6 from their ISP. ...

Hah. No. No they don't. They want, as you point out, "access to the internet", which they are currently getting JUST FINE. And this will continue to be the case for a LONG TIME.

ISPs who don't have IPv6 will soon be unable to provide access to all Internet sites, as content providers begin to bring IPv6 sites onstream.

I've been hearing this BS for over a decade, and yet I've not heard a single complaint or run into a single site I could not access for lack of IPv6. Yes, there are IPv6 only sites, but I don't use them, nor do any of the people I know. What little IPv6 I have used I have had to go out of my way to *intentionally* use IPv6 over v4. Until there are common sites that are only accessible via IPv6 -- thus unavailable to "unevolved" ISP customers, ISP won't be investing anything in IPv6 deployment. That's not to say ISPs aren't experimenting with it -- some are, simply that they are not putting any heavy engineering resources behind it.

The approaching time...

Right now, that snail is on the other side of the world -- almost literally. Unless someone glues a rocket to it's shell, it won't even be on the horizon for years. If it were up to me, you, or the rest of the list, we'd rather simply get the mess over and switch everything tomorrow. *heh* But that ain't gonna happen. (I still have gear in use that only does IPX. thankfully, I've escaped Appletalk, but IPX is still clinging to life.) --Ricky

On 31/03/10 22:14 -0300, jim deleskie wrote:

I'm a real life user, I know the difference and I could careless about v6. most anything I want I is on v4 and will still be there long after ( when ever it is) we run out of v4 addresses. If I'm on a

From a content perspective, you may be right. Those with a quickly dwindling supply of v4 addresses will most likely use what they have left for business customers, and for content. However, there will be a time when a significant number of customers will not be able to access your content.

content provider and I'm putting something new online I want everyone to see, they will find away for all of us with v4 and credit cards to see it, and not be so worried about developing countries or the sub 5% of people in developed countries for now. I'm sure @ some point v6

What percentage of sales are you willing to eat?

will see the business need, but while I'm expect to have to deploy it for marketing reasons, I hope its someone else's problem but its a must have for real business.

Are you willing to gamble your business on your expectations? Business models will develop that will take advantage of global addressing to end devices. The Next Big (Nth) Thing will. Do you feel that you have a perfect Crystal Ball, or do you want to start hedging your bets now? -- Dan White

On 31/03/10 23:18 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

Dan White wrote:

...

From a content perspective, you may be right. Those with a quickly dwindling supply of v4 addresses will most likely use what they have left for business customers, and for content.

However, there will be a time when a significant number of customers will not be able to access your content.

^^ Uncertainty .

...

What percentage of sales are you willing to eat?

^^ Fear .

...

Are you willing to gamble your business on your expectations? Business models will develop that will take advantage of global addressing to end devices. The Next Big (Nth) Thing will. Do you feel that you have a perfect Crystal Ball, or do you want to start hedging your bets now?

^^ Doubt.

http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/ -- Dan White

On 31/03/10 23:52 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

We have just (anecdotally, empirically) established earlier in this thread, that anything smaller than a mid-sized business, can't even *GET* IPv6 easily (at least in the USA); much less care about it.

Talking about a "crystal ball", in my view, is just a lot of hand-waving that means "I don't have a real-world example to point to".

Talking about "the Next Big Thing" means that somehow, the NBT will be present without any residential or small business broadband users partaking in it. Sounds like a pretty small piece of the pie for the NBT...

For the record, I have no dog in this fight; I just think that the rhetoric / fanboi-ism / advocacy level is just a little too high - emotion rather than reason is taking over in the course of debate, which for me at least, is unwelcome.

As a (small) service provider with very stiff competition from much larger providers where I work, we have to have a perfect Crystal Ball, or hedge our bets. Customer needs are constantly changing, and are a constantly moving target. Historically we have a good understanding of what they want. We were the first broadband provider in our footprint for several years, but we have lost customers to competition as well. Technology is most notable when it is disruptive, and is probably most devastating to a company like our's when it is. We will only survive if we are prepared, and that's the same advice I would offer anyone who has a penny to lose in this game. -- Dan White

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

On 03/31/2010 08:52 PM, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

...

We have just (anecdotally, empirically) established earlier in this thread, that anything smaller than a mid-sized business, can't even *GET* IPv6 easily (at least in the USA); much less care about it.

fwiw, that last time I was at a company that needed a prefix, we wrote up an addressing plan, applied, received an assignment, payed our money and were done. if a pool of public addresses are a resource you need to

But were you able to get transit that let you use the address space? I'm sure it's getting better, but as recently as 2 years ago it was near impossible to get for most areas (and most providers, and most colo facilities). -- david raistrick http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html drais@icantclick.org http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

On 04/01/2010 08:13 AM, david raistrick wrote:

On Wed, 31 Mar 2010, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

...

On 03/31/2010 08:52 PM, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

...

We have just (anecdotally, empirically) established earlier in this thread, that anything smaller than a mid-sized business, can't even *GET* IPv6 easily (at least in the USA); much less care about it.

fwiw, that last time I was at a company that needed a prefix, we wrote up an addressing plan, applied, received an assignment, payed our money and were done. if a pool of public addresses are a resource you need to

But were you able to get transit that let you use the address space?

The entities that we pay money to to provide us with ip transit were willing to carry our ipv6 prefix yes, at the time, not all of them could do it on the first-hop router.

I'm sure it's getting better, but as recently as 2 years ago it was near impossible to get for most areas (and most providers, and most colo facilities).

talk to your sales person, then make sure that their AS appears in the ipv6 DFZ. The well connected ASes at the center of the graph are prepared to sell you services.

-- david raistrick http://www.netmeister.org/news/learn2quote.html drais@icantclick.org http://www.expita.com/nomime.html

On 31/03/10 23:18 -0400, Patrick Giagnocavo wrote:

...

Dan White wrote:

...

From a content perspective, you may be right. Those with a quickly dwindling supply of v4 addresses will most likely use what they have left for business customers, and for content.

However, there will be a time when a significant number of customers will not be able to access your content.

^^ Uncertainty .

...

What percentage of sales are you willing to eat?

^^ Fear .

...

Are you willing to gamble your business on your expectations? Business models will develop that will take advantage of global addressing to end devices. The Next Big (Nth) Thing will. Do you feel that you have a perfect Crystal Ball, or do you want to start hedging your bets now?

^^ Doubt.

http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/

And on that note, I enclose the following, which was rejected by the RFC Editor, but seems relevant to this discussion, so here's the draft. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples. Network Working Group Joe Greco Request for Comments: [nnnn] sol.net Network Services Category: Experimental April 1, 2010 Expires March 2011 IPv4 Future Allocation Is Limited Unless Registries Expand Status of this Memo Distribution of this memo is unlimited. By submitting this Internet-Draft, each author represents that any applicable patent or other IPR claims of which he or she is aware have been or will be disclosed, and any of which he or she becomes aware will be disclosed, in accordance with Section 6 of BCP 79. Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-Drafts. Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any time. It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference material or to cite them other than as "work in progress." The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/1id-abstracts.html The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html. Abstract The momentum of the currently deployed IPv4 network has resulted in a slower transition to IPv6 than expected, and IPv4 address reserves may soon be exhausted. This memo defines an additional class of IPv4 space which may be deployed as an interim solution. Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 1] Internet Draft IPv4 Class F Space April 1, 2010 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ....................................................2 2. Classful Addressing .............................................2 2.1. Expansion via Classful Addressing ..........................3 2.2. Impact on existing infrastructure ..........................3 2.3. Negative aspects to extending IPv4 lifetime ................4 2.4. Positive aspects to extending IPv4 lifetime ................4 2.5. Adjusted estimated IPv4 depletion date .....................4 2.6. Impact on IPv6 adoption ....................................4 3. Security Considerations .........................................5 4. IANA Considerations .............................................5 5. References ......................................................5 5.1. Informative References .....................................5 5.2. Acknowledgements ...........................................5 1. Introduction The current Internet addressing scheme has been reasonably successful at providing an Internet capable of providing network services to users. However, because of massive growth and the increasing number of networks being connected to the Internet, an ongoing shortage of network numbers has brought us close to the point where assignable IPv4 prefixes are exhausted. To combat this, the Internet is currently undergoing a major transition to IPv6. Despite the looming exhaustion of IPv4 space [IPv4_Report], IPv6 adoption rates have been slower than expected. Policy suggestions to extend the availability of IPv4 have ranged from reclamation of unused legacy IPv4 delegations [ICANN_feb08] to the use of carrier-grade NAT to place most customers of service providers on RFC1918 space [Nishitani]. We propose a different solution to the problem. RFC 1365 [RFC1365] and RFC 1375 [RFC1375] suggest some possible methods for implementing additional address classes. While classful addressing is now considered obsolete, the use of class to refer to a particular portion of the IPv4 address space is still useful for that purpose. Allocations within this space are expected to conform to existing CIDR allocation guidelines. By allocating an additional class, we gain a substantial amount of IP space. Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 2] Internet Draft IPv4 Class F Space April 1, 2010 2. Classful Addressing Classful addressing was introduced in RFC 791 [RFC791], providing Class A, B, and C spaces. RFC 1700 [RFC1700] defines Class D and E, and we derive the resulting table: Leading Network Class Bits Bits Range ------ ------- ------- ----- A 0 8 .0.n.n.n-127.n.n.n B 10 16 128.n.n.n-191.n.n.n C 110 24 192.n.n.n-223.n.n.n D 1110 undef 224.n.n.n-239.n.n.n E 1111 undef 240.n.n.n-255.n.n.n 2.1. Expansion via Classful Addressing While classful routing is generally no longer relevant, it provides us with a useful clue about how to proceed. The prepending of a new leading bit provides access to additional IP space, and so it would seem to be a reasonable short-term fix to define a new class, Class F, giving us: Leading Network Class Bits Bits Range ------ ------- ------- ----- A 0 8 0.n.n.n-127.n.n.n B 10 16 128.n.n.n-191.n.n.n C 110 24 192.n.n.n-223.n.n.n D 1110 undef 224.n.n.n-239.n.n.n E 1111 undef 240.n.n.n-255.n.n.n F 10000 undef 256.n.n.n-511.n.n.n This theoretically offers up to a few hundred more /8 assignments that IANA would delegate to registries as an interim solution. 2.2. Impact on existing infrastructure Currently deployed equipment may not be able to cope with an expanded range within the first octet. In particular, a router might fail to observe the additional leading bit. Such a scenario would effectively map network 257/8 into 1/8 on that device. Such a limitation can be carefully worked around through an allocation strategy that avoids currently occupied space in the Class A through C spaces. For example, 1/8 and 5/8 are currently IANA reserved space, 7/8 is assigned to DoD, and other various networks are unrouted or unoccupied as well. This suggests that 261/8 and 263/8 would be good targets for immediate allocation. Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 3] Internet Draft IPv4 Class F Space April 1, 2010 2.3. Negative aspects to extending IPv4 lifetime IPv4 lifetime estimates have frequently been incorrect. This has been one factor that had led to sluggish momentum in adopting IPv6, and has not generated sufficient urgency to move from IPv4 to IPv6. Artificially extending IPv4's available space with this proposal would be likely to slow IPv6 adoption rates, at least somewhat, as many decision makers would interpret the expansion of the IPv4 free pool as a compelling reason to avoid unnecessary near-term investment in migration to IPv6. 2.4. Positive aspects to extending IPv4 lifetime The cost of upgrading or replacing many networking devices globally is extremely high. A quick survey of contemporary networking devices suggests that even many current devices are incapable of supporting IPv6. The world is clearly not entirely ready for IPv6, and therefore IPv4 can be expected to be a requirement for many more years. Further, IPv6 renders it almost impossible to memorize IP addresses, which places undue burden on network engineers and analysts. Setting up a newly configured device virtually demands a cut-and-paste capable interface under IPv6. Finally, IPv6 is designed to waste a few billion v4 Internets worth of IP addresses for every autoconfigured ethernet. There are virtually endless IP addresses that will never be used, and the untapped potential wasted by IPv6 is depressing. IPv4, on the other hand, will ultimately be pushed to its technical limits, with triple- NAT becoming commonplace as service providers seek to optimize available space. This will be very exciting and will also help to keep network engineers gainfully employed. 2.5. Adjusted estimated IPv4 depletion date The current RIR allocation rate is approximately 12 /8's per year. This rate has grown slowly over time, and is estimated to be at least 20 /8's within five years. Extrapolation using conservative estimates suggests that Class F space would be exhausted around April 1st, 2020. 2.6. Impact on IPv6 adoption There has been much concern expressed about the slow adoption rate of IPv6. In a situation where IPv4 space was nearly depleted, the slow rate would be of great concern. However, by implementing Class F space as outlined in this document, it should be clear that depletion Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 4] Internet Draft IPv4 Class F Space April 1, 2010 need not be imminent, and in 2020, when there are finally 5,000 routes in the IPv6 table and Class F space is depleted, another clever solution will need to be devised. 3. Security Considerations There are no security considerations relevant to this document. 4. IANA Considerations No actions are required from IANA as result of the publication of this document. Implementation of the proposal contained herein may require some action, however. 5. References 5.1. Informative References [IPv4_Report] Huston, G., "IPv4 Address Report", 2009, <http://www.potaroo.net/tools/ipv4/index.html>. [ICANN_feb08] ICANN, "ICANN Recovers Large Block of Internet Address Space", February 2008, <http://www.icann.org/en/announcements/announcement-2-10feb08.htm>. [Nishitani] Nishitani, T., Yamagata, I., et. al., "Common Functions of Large Scale NAT", draft-nishitani-cgn-03. [RFC791] Information Sciences Institute, USC, "DARPA Internet Program Protocol Specification", RFC 791, September 1981. [RFC1365] Siyan, K., "An IP Address Extension Proposal", RFC 1365, September 1992. [RFC1375] Robinson, P., "Suggestion for New Classes of IP Addresses", RFC 1375, October 1992. [RFC1700] Reynolds, J. and Postel, J., "Assigned Numbers", RFC 1700, October 1994. 5.2. Acknowledgements The author would like to offer a special note of thanks to Robert E. Seastrom <rs at seastrom.com> for pointing out that this would be Class F space. Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 5] Internet Draft IPv4 Class F Space April 1, 2010 Authors' Addresses Joe Greco sol.net Network Services P.O. Box 16 Milwaukee, WI 53201-0016 Phone: +1-888-830-2216 URI: http://www.sol.net/~jgreco EMail: rfc-apr1@4ac18e35.biz.jgreco.net Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 6] Internet Draft IPv4 Class F Space April 1, 2010 Full Copyright Statement Copyright (C) The IETF Trust (2006). This document is subject to the rights, licenses and restrictions contained in BCP 78, and except as set forth therein, the authors retain all their rights. This document and the information contained herein are provided on an "AS IS" basis and THE CONTRIBUTOR, THE ORGANIZATION HE/SHE REPRESENTS OR IS SPONSORED BY (IF ANY), THE INTERNET SOCIETY, THE IETF TRUST, AND THE INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY WARRANTY THAT THE USE OF THE INFORMATION HEREIN WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY RIGHTS OR ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Intellectual Property The IETF takes no position regarding the validity or scope of any Intellectual Property Rights or other rights that might be claimed to pertain to the implementation or use of the technology described in this document or the extent to which any license under such rights might or might not be available; nor does it represent that it has made any independent effort to identify any such rights. Information on the procedures with respect to rights in RFC documents can be found in BCP 78 and BCP 79. Copies of IPR disclosures made to the IETF Secretariat and any assurances of licenses to be made available, or the result of an attempt made to obtain a general license or permission for the use of such proprietary rights by implementers or users of this specification can be obtained from the IETF on-line IPR repository at http://www.ietf.org/ipr. The IETF invites any interested party to bring to its attention any copyrights, patents or patent applications, or other proprietary rights that may cover technology that may be required to implement this standard. Please address the information to the IETF at ietf-ipr@ietf.org. Greco, Joe Expires March 2011 FORMFEED[Page 7]

On Mar 31, 2010, at 8:22 PM, Dan White wrote: […]

http://www.iana.org/assignments/ipv4-address-space/

I think it's worth pointing out again that the URLs for IANA registries have changed and the old URLs, like the one above, will be going away from next week. Anyone automatically parsing the registries should make sure they adjust their scripts before then. Full details can be found in the announcement: http://www.ietf.org/ibin/c5i?mid=6&rid=49&gid=0&k1=933&k2=50520&tid=1270181265 and the URL for all registries can always be found from: http://www.iana.org/protocols/ Regards, Leo

On Fri, Apr 02, 2010 at 11:42:25AM +0200, Robert Kisteleki <robert@ripe.net> wrote a message of 20 lines which said:

I don't know what good reasons you might have to pull down the current URLs. Please keep them working.

I strongly agree and, by the way, it seems this was partially mentioned in the original announcement:

The old URLs will contain information for the location of the new versions available (TXT, XML and XHTML).

On Apr 1, 2010, at 11:42 PM, Robert Kisteleki wrote:

I don't know what good reasons you might have to pull down the current URLs.

Because the content has changed from arbitrary ASCII text files into more easily parseable XML and backporting to those arbitrary ASCII text files has proven too error prone and labor intensive. Regards, -drc

On Apr 2, 2010, at 7:13 AM, Robert Kisteleki wrote:

You're confusing two things: URL and content. According to the announcement, TXT files will be generated still. Why, again, must the URL change?

As Leo pointed out, a message will be displayed at the historical URL. Does this address your concerns? Regards, -drc

I don't have any reference to support the idea that 100% of regular users want IPv6, I don't think they know or care to know what IPv6 is or what's the difference with IPv4 which most probably they don't know either besides few configuration screens of the devices they use. What for sure they eally want is high speed, reliable and omnipresent connectivity. I regularly ask about IPv6 when I find new information about a Home CPE class router because I'm engaged in some activities related to connecting "things" (which I don't intend to mean that people are also things), particularly in residential applications. Think about a combination of wired/wireless sensors and devices, energy management, security, home automation stuff. On the wireless front we are making some progress (probably too slow) on the IETF with 6LoWPAN, many other applications are gradually switching to ethernet or at least using lite TCP/IP. Then my interest is to have better knowledge about what on that class of equipment is on the pipeline, to deal with questions such as, do the particular application I mentioned above needs to be developed totally with native IPv6 ?, or IPv4 ?, or combination of both ?, do we require translation/tunneling/etc ?, or can defer that function to another device that will take care to send and get the packets from/to the net ? That sort of thing. Just to play with, I purchased a soekris net5501 board (very nice board for that price) and planning to start playing with it using FreeBSD. I took a look at the RouterBoard but the firmware license is too restrictive and there is no much hacking (well there is always a way to hack) you can do, but they are dirty cheap. Cheers Jorge

On 3/31/2010 22:12, Dan White wrote:

On 31/03/10 22:14 -0300, jim deleskie wrote:

...

I'm a real life user, I know the difference and I could careless about v6. most anything I want I is on v4 and will still be there long after ( when ever it is) we run out of v4 addresses. If I'm on a

From a content perspective, you may be right. Those with a quickly dwindling supply of v4 addresses will most likely use what they have left for business customers, and for content.

However, there will be a time when a significant number of customers will not be able to access your content.

...

content provider and I'm putting something new online I want everyone to see, they will find away for all of us with v4 and credit cards to see it, and not be so worried about developing countries or the sub 5% of people in developed countries for now. I'm sure @ some point v6

There is an indication here of the fault that is present in way too much of the world. We have here another example of [engineers|elites|experts|people-with-soap-boxes] think something is a good idea THEREFORE "Everybody wants it". My rant here needs refurbishment to account for wireless connections, but I've gotten a lot of mileage out of it. Most people of the world want something to eat. Omitting all of the intermediate steps, the few that have all of their other needs taken care of want smart wall paper. Most care not a whit how the wallpaper does it, they just want when the plug a lamp into it to get light. A toaster, warmed bread. A computer, to be able to exchange email, read the news, watch pornography, or play games. -- Democracy: Three wolves and a sheep voting on the dinner menu. Requiescas in pace o email Ex turpi causa non oritur actio Eppure si rinfresca ICBM Targeting Information: http://tinyurl.com/4sqczs http://tinyurl.com/7tp8ml

Until there are common sites that are only accessible via IPv6 -- thus unavailable to "unevolved" ISP customers, ISP won't be investing anything in IPv6 deployment. That's not to say ISPs aren't experimenting with it -- some are, simply that they are not putting any heavy engineering resources behind it.

I beg to differ. I know several ISPs that have been quietly putting quite a bit of engineering resource behind IPv6. The public announcement of residential IPv6 trials by Comcast was not the beginning of a serious commitment to IPv6 by Comcast, but, rather more towards the middle. Comcast has had substantial engineering resources on IPv6 for several years now. Will IPv6-only content be common soon? Probably not for at least another 5 years. Will IPv6-only eye-balls with severely degraded IPv4 customer experiences be common sooner? You bet. That one is unavoidable as there simply won't be IPv4 address space to use for some significant fraction of those customers. Owen

What I heard at a recent (within the past six months) conference was that "there is no customer demand for v6" so it isn't on the immediate needs list. He said they had a lot of inquiries about v6, but to date not having native v6 wasn't a deal breaker with anyone.

Last time we renegotiated transit contracts, we specified IPv6 as an absolute requirement. *Native* IPv6 was an added plus. As it turned out, two of our chosen transit providers could deliver native IPv6 from day one, and the third a few months later. Native IPv6 availability was one of several factors used to make the decision between transit providers. Steinar Haug, Nethelp consulting, sthaug@nethelp.no

On Apr 1, 2010, at 2:25 PM, George Bonser wrote:

...

I beg to differ. I know several ISPs that have been quietly putting quite a bit of engineering resource behind IPv6. The public announcement of residential IPv6 trials by Comcast was not the beginning of a serious commitment to IPv6 by Comcast, but, rather more towards the middle. Comcast has had substantial engineering resources on IPv6 for several years now.

None of my transit providers currently offer native ipv6 where we are located. One recent vendor said they could tunnel 6 over 4 but any network address blocks assigned to that network would change at some point in the future. In other words, we could do v6 over 4 now but we would have to renumber later.

You can get a permanent IPv6 address from the tunnel brokers at Hurricane or SIXXS. You can get an IPv6 PI Block from an RIR and route that via BGP over an HE tunnel. (Some people get upset when I say this and don't mention I work for HE. I work for HE because I think the above free services are cool and I like what they're doing with IPv6.)

What I heard at a recent (within the past six months) conference was that "there is no customer demand for v6" so it isn't on the immediate needs list. He said they had a lot of inquiries about v6, but to date not having native v6 wasn't a deal breaker with anyone.

I watched a vendor at one conference tell 20 people in a row that each one of them was the only one asking for IPv6. I mentioned to him that he should have his short-term memory loss checked out by a physician. At first he was confused. When I pointed out what I had just seen him do, he went from confused to embarrassed and admitted that it was the party line from his marketing department and they knew IPv6 was important, but, didn't have a story to tell yet, so, they were trying to spin for delay.

So my instincts tell me that until not being native v6 capable IS a deal breaker with potential clients, it isn't really going to go on the front burner. Many companies operate on the "it isn't a problem until it is a problem" model.

It _IS_ a deal breaker for some potential clients. It _WILL_ be a deal breaker for an increasingly large number of clients over the next couple of years. I suspect that it will be less than 2 years before you see every client insisting that they need IPv6 capability RIGHT NOW. Owen

On Thu, 1 Apr 2010 00:16:03 +0000 Michael Dillon <wavetossed@googlemail.com> wrote:

On 1 April 2010 00:05, Nick Hilliard <nick@foobar.org> wrote:

...

On 01/04/2010 00:40, Michael Dillon wrote:

...

In fact, consumer demand for IPv6 is close to 100%.

Michael,  I think you fat-fingered "0%".

Just to be clear, I'm talking about the real world here.

I did not fat finger anything. In the real world, nearly 100% of consumers demand IPv6 from their ISP.

Exactly. Running out of "Internet Phone Numbers" is an unacceptable excuse to both customers and ISP management.

But consumers are not techies so they don't talk that way with acronyms and technical gobbledygook version numbers. In plain English they tell us that they want the Internet access service to just plain work. They want it to work all the time, including tomorrow and if they move across town, or to another city, they want to order a move from the ISP, and have it done in a few days.

ISPs who don't have IPv6 will soon be unable to provide access to all Internet sites, as content providers begin to bring IPv6 sites onstream. And ISPs without IPv6 will not be able to continue growing their networks, even for something as trivial as an existing customer who moves to a different PoP.

The approaching time is going to be a crisis for the ISP industry, and the press will tar some ISPs in a very bad light if they can't smoothly introduce IPv6. There will be bargain basement sellouts and happy M&A departments at ISPs with foresight who got their IPv6 capability ready early.

It's now like the calm before the storm. We know that a battle is coming and we know roughly where and when it will be fought. Reports from the field indicate that all is quiet, but that is normal just before the battle commences. The wise general will not be put off by these reports of peace and quiet, but will prepare his forces and keep an eye on the preparations of his adversaries.

--Michael Dillon

On Mar 31, 2010, at 1:53 PM, Michael Holstein wrote:

...

I checked the documentation for two models (Linux model and highest-end non-Linux model), and there's no mention of IPv6.

If this is a strictly "hardware" discussion, v6 "works" on a variety of models, albeit not with stock firmware. To wit : http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/IPv6

This suggests that Cisco (et.al.) can release an "official" firmware image to support v6 on existing devices whenever they're sufficiently motivated to do so. I'd wager the only reason it hasn't been made GA is to limit the number of "pass-the-buck" support calls that start at $isp and get bounced back saying "we don't support that yet, call whoever makes your router".

Not necessarily. dd-wrt lacks the memory expense of the silly web interface that Linksys is oh so fond of implementing in their consumer grade boxen. I suspect that adding features to the Linksys code may be a bit tighter on image and data space than dd-wrt's "stripped down" efficiency. Owen

It's not in the wrt610n docs either yet the code was unambiguously in the box, complete with 6to4 that your couldn't shut off. On 03/31/2010 01:26 PM, Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote:

I checked the documentation for two models (Linux model and highest-end non-Linux model), and there's no mention of IPv6.

Frank

-----Original Message----- From: Nick Hilliard [mailto:nick@foobar.org] Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 3:16 PM To: Joel Jaeggli Cc: NANOG Subject: Re: New Linksys CPE, IPv6 ?

On 31/03/2010 21:07, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

...

the current wrt610n supports ipv6 I failed to see why a slightly updated and rebranded one would not as well.

because for low-end CPE devices like this, a tiny change in the model number (e.g. v1->v2) might mean a completely different internal system, with different host CPU, different ethernet controller, etc. You're not in any way guaranteed the same sort of software compatibility when moving from one device version to another, particularly for less well supported features like ipv6.

Nick

FWIW, I see no IPv6 options on my WRT610N HW Version 2. I thought maybe there was a new firmware version which added IPv6 capability, but I'm still running the latest. There's no IPv6 options on any menu, including 6to4 options that I can see. May be available under DD-WRT or something similar, although last time I looked this model only had alpha stage support for DD-WRT. - Jim On 3/31/2010 14:51, Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote:

I confirmed with Linksys' PR person that there is no IPv6 -- if someone sees different, please let us know.

Frank

-----Original Message----- From: Joel Jaeggli [mailto:joelja@bogus.com] Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 4:30 PM To: frnkblk@iname.com Cc: 'Nick Hilliard'; NANOG Subject: Re: New Linksys CPE, IPv6 ?

It's not in the wrt610n docs either yet the code was unambiguously in the box, complete with 6to4 that your couldn't shut off.

On 03/31/2010 01:26 PM, Frank Bulk - iName.com wrote:

...

I checked the documentation for two models (Linux model and highest-end non-Linux model), and there's no mention of IPv6.

Frank

-----Original Message----- From: Nick Hilliard [mailto:nick@foobar.org] Sent: Wednesday, March 31, 2010 3:16 PM To: Joel Jaeggli Cc: NANOG Subject: Re: New Linksys CPE, IPv6 ?

On 31/03/2010 21:07, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

...

the current wrt610n supports ipv6 I failed to see why a slightly updated and rebranded one would not as well.

because for low-end CPE devices like this, a tiny change in the model number (e.g. v1->v2) might mean a completely different internal system, with different host CPU, different ethernet controller, etc. You're not in any way guaranteed the same sort of software compatibility when moving from one device version to another, particularly for less well supported features like ipv6.

Nick

Linksys Live Chat claims neither the new Valet, nor the new E-Series supports IPv6. I do not have high confidence in the accuracy of the answer. Owen On Mar 31, 2010, at 1:07 PM, Joel Jaeggli wrote:

On 03/31/2010 12:00 PM, Jorge Amodio wrote:

...

http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2010/prod_033110.html

Does anybody know what are the plans for IPv6 support ?

the current wrt610n supports ipv6 I failed to see why a slightly updated and rebranded one would not as well.

...

Regards Jorge