Chris-Linfoot.net

While modern computers, servers, routers and other online devices are able to use IPv6, internet service providers have yet to implement the system.

"The reason they haven't - which is quite understandable - is that customers haven't asked for it yet," said Mr Cerf, adding, "my job, whether with my Icann hat on or not, is to persuade them to ask for it.

"If you don't ask for it, then when you most want it you won't have it."

So I suggested a topic for the agenda at our next meeting - to explain to me their strategy for deployment of IPv6.

Well, you have to try.

Personally I am now persuaded that IPv6 is necessary, and soon, but the magnitude of the task is daunting and I fear that many ISPs will simply fail to rise to the challenge. After all, let's not forget that many still struggle to provide reliable, secure connectivity to domestic customers via IPv4. And, while that BBC piece says that "modern computers, servers, routers and other online devices are able to use IPv6", this is an economical truth.

Yes, the Wii (and most other contemporary games consoles, it would appear) does support IPv6. Windows Vista has IPv6 enabled by default too, but that, so far as I am aware, completes the list.

The majority of home users still use XP. There is an IPv6 stack for XP - I know. I've used it - but it is not there by default and the overwhelming majority of users will neither care about installing it nor have the requisite skills so to do.

And despite the increasing popularity of domestic wireless installations, which often bring with them a measure of protection otherwise missing in that wireless access points often include a border router with NAT and a rudimentary SPI firewall, most of these have no IPv6 either.

Whichever way you look at it, there will be a solid core of IPv4 consumers on the 'net for a long time to come and so the challenge to backbone providers, ISPs and content providers is to implement and maintain IPv6 alongside IPv4 and to maintain this status quo, perhaps for a very long time indeed.

This increases costs and complexity with little tangible benefit.

That bar chart at the top of this piece is the result of a poll I have been running here recently. The question was when should we adopt IPv6 and more people answered "soon" than any other category. But it isn't a landslide result and, despite the quasi technical nature of this site and the consequent bias of its readership towards good understanding of technical matters, a significant proportion of respondents appear to have no understanding of what IPv6 is. You can be sure that, in the population as a whole, this would probably have been the single largest group, and by a very wide margin too.

This general ignorance simply adds to the challenge.

It will be very interesting indeed to hear what my ISP has to say on the matter when we meet again later in the month. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find an opportunity to ask your own ISP the same question.

And do post a comment here if you get an interesting answer.

Category: IPv6
Technorati: IPv6

1. Conrad Longmore02/11/2007 11:14:26
Homepage: http://www.dynamoo.com/

Well the IPv4 address crisis has been forecast for many, many years and hasn't come to pass, mostly because of NAT. Now we have a situation where addresses are in short supply again.. but if you look closely, many corporations (and even medium sized companies) are sitting on ridiculously large IP address blocks that they no longer need.

So perhaps the medium term issue is to carve up some of the big allocation blocks. Perhaps market economics could come to play - how much is an IP address actually *worth*?

2. Chris Linfoot02/11/2007 12:52:42

That's a good point about ridiculously large IP address blocks. You mean like these /8 networks which each belong to a single organisation?

http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=9.255.255.255 (IBM)
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=15.255.255.255 (HP)
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=16.255.255.255 (HP again!)
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=17.255.255.255 (Apple)
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=18.255.255.255 (MIT)
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=19.255.255.255 (Ford)
http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=20.255.255.255 (CSC)

Being /8 blocks, these have 16.7 million addresses each, and there are plenty more /8s like these in private hands. I wonder who ever thought that allocating a /8 network to a single organisation was a good idea?

RFC1917 ( http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1917.html ), which called for unused addresses to be returned to the IANA, was an attempt to address this anomaly. But what is missing from RFC1917 is financial incentive.

Nobody is going to give away their /8 block, but they might sell it or part of it.

I wonder if any of these companies have their IPv4 allocations valued on their balance sheets. If they have, then they might want to think about selling them before IPv6 gains momentum, the value of these /8 IPv4 networks plummets and they have a substantial write off on their hands...

3. Charles Robinson02/11/2007 13:37:58
Homepage: http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com

We upgraded to fiber service a few years ago and the ISP (Spirit Telecom, a division of SCANA Communications) actually pushed us to use IPv6! They offered to have their engineers come in and set it up for us, free of charge. I'm not sure what they would have gotten out of it and it shocked me to see them pushing it so aggressively. We weren't ready for it so we declined, but it was interesting to see them so gung ho about it.

That was the company where, when I started, they had a /24 and every network device in the company had a public IP. They had no firewall and they were running Windows 95 on the desktops(this was 1998). Scary stuff indeed. Very shortly I had a firewall in place and DHCP enabled, and we returned our /24 to the pool and only kept 5 or 6 IP's.

4. Richard Schwartz02/11/2007 17:27:14
Homepage: http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz

Just to clarify, HP owns two Class A blocks due to the acquisition of Digital's block, combined with their own.

My guess is that Ford is on that last due to their relationship with EDS.

It is also worth pointing out that several of these firms with Class A blocks do operate large global hosting and outsourcing businesses, and thus they do have some reasonable claim to need very large address spaces.

5. Chris Linfoot02/11/2007 18:08:21

@4: I know about HP/DEC. Some sources still refer to it as DEC.

http://xkcd.com/195/

Global services? Well, maybe, but a whole class A, just for that? Still too much IMHO. BT doesn't have a whole class A.

And check this one.

http://ws.arin.net/whois/?queryinput=52.255.255.255

What does du Pont need a class A for?

6. Richard Schwartz02/11/2007 19:18:07
Homepage: http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz

Should have said "did have some reasonable claim" rather than "do hvae some reasonable claim". "Did have", as in "before NAT".

Anyhow, it's awfully hard to get off a class A once you have it. Once you've doled out a bunch of class B spaces to your geographies, your business units, your subsidaries, etc., and thoroughly fragmented your address space, and the people who originally received each allocation have left the organization and nobody quite knows who really controls some of the subnets. Nobody thought about all that way back when they created the whole concept of class A address spaces in the first place.

7. Keith Milner09/11/2007 16:04:18
Homepage: http://www.superlative-solutions.com

Firstly, I think it's important to note that most Unix/Linux based systems have had IPv6 support for a number of years now. Whilst this isn't hugely influential at the client end (yet), it accounts for the majority of servers.

Another thing to note is that whilst there is good support for IPv6 from some vendors on some equipment for several years, it's not been universal. It's probably only been practical for a large ISP to start using IPv6 on their network in the last 4-5 years.

More importantly, the network is only one part of the equation: Support systems (OSS particularly) need to worth with IPv6... there's no point switching your network over to IPv6 if you cannot monitor it. IPv6 support from OSS vendors is still quite patchy.

Finally, in the last several years ISPs have been under considerable financial pressure, largely as a result of post dot-com bubble-burst under-investment. A migration to IPv6 will cost a lot of money and take a lot of time, and could be very disruptive to the business. New systems have to be purchased and existing systems upgraded. New processes have to be written and people trained (and this may require further systems development). Basically it's almost like starting a new ISP from scratch.

Most ISPs are aware that IPv6 is "coming" but until they have a compelling reason to switch to it, most are deferring making this painful decision.

Keith

8. Chris Linfoot09/11/2007 16:45:24

Keith, I think we are in broad agreement.

Although, while it may be true that the majority of Linux servers have IPv6, it is a combination of client support, server side application (not OS) support and support for IPv6 within the network fabric as a whole which is the major brake on the whole process of adoption.

Aside: Although I just built an Ubuntu server box to run a Squid proxy and can report that the default Ubuntu server 6.06 LTS build has no IPv6 loaded.

Yes the issue is that, as you put it, "Most ISPs are aware that IPv6 is "coming" but until they have a compelling reason to switch to it, most are deferring making this painful decision." This is why concerned customers should start asking for it - to give them that compelling reason.

I have asked an additional two ISPs this question within the past week and met with the same, slightly startled response from each.

Some (not all) of these ISPs' representatives were sales, not technical people, but few were even aware that IPv6 existed. Those that were were amazed to hear me ask about it ("none of our other customers talks this way").

Finally, you say that it's probably only been practical for a large ISP to start using IPv6 on their network in the last 4-5 years...

I'd be very interested to know which ISPs, particularly British ones, are using IPv6 at all. Perhaps BT as part of their 21CN vision, but I bet that completes the British list.

9. Jerry Carter09/11/2007 19:30:07
Homepage: http://datatribesoftwerks.com

Juts a small footnote - OS X also has IPV6 support. Also, ddwrt, a replacement open source firmware based on linux, for many Linksys routers, supports IPV6.

Unable to post a comment? Please read this for a possible explanation...